{"id":134,"date":"2018-11-10T16:45:44","date_gmt":"2018-11-10T16:45:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/?page_id=134"},"modified":"2019-02-10T16:14:02","modified_gmt":"2019-02-10T16:14:02","slug":"guitar-or-piano-that-is-the-question-1955-please-god","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/home\/guitar-or-piano-that-is-the-question-1955-please-god\/","title":{"rendered":"Guitar or Piano, That is the Question (1955): &#8220;Please, God&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-134-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2019\/02\/Please-God.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2019\/02\/Please-God.mp3\">http:\/\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2019\/02\/Please-God.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mainstreetragbookstore.com\/product\/ticket-stubs-liner-notes-tim-hunt\/\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"262\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/home\/my-ding-a-ling-chuck-berry-at-the-roadhouse-ithaca-ny-november-1970\/top_banner_flat\/#main\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/12\/top_banner_flat.png?fit=1020%2C80&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"1020,80\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/12\/top_banner_flat.png?fit=1020%2C80&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-262\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/12\/top_banner_flat.png?resize=940%2C74\" alt=\"Available now from Main Street Rag\" width=\"940\" height=\"74\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/12\/top_banner_flat.png?w=1020&amp;ssl=1 1020w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/12\/top_banner_flat.png?resize=300%2C24&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/12\/top_banner_flat.png?resize=768%2C60&amp;ssl=1 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 940px) 100vw, 940px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"133\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/home\/teaching-little-fingers\/#main\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/11\/Teaching-Little-Fingers.jpg?fit=776%2C590&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"776,590\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"Teaching Little Fingers\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/11\/Teaching-Little-Fingers.jpg?fit=776%2C590&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-133\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/11\/Teaching-Little-Fingers.jpg?resize=275%2C209\" alt=\"\" width=\"275\" height=\"209\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/11\/Teaching-Little-Fingers.jpg?resize=300%2C228&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/11\/Teaching-Little-Fingers.jpg?resize=768%2C584&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/11\/Teaching-Little-Fingers.jpg?w=776&amp;ssl=1 776w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 275px) 100vw, 275px\" \/>In 1955 to play the piano is a social grace, a declaration that one is middle class, no matter one\u2019s roots\u2014a sign of having moved beyond your Depression era childhood and those days at school trying to pass for not poor.\u00a0 It\u2019s like being raised Baptist but going, instead, to the Methodist Church and pretending the mothers of the young women who&#8217;d been your classmates believe you belong.<\/p>\n<p>So, yes, my mother tried to teach me the piano, and, yes, I resisted as she explained the black dots and sentenced me to the bench as if \u201cpractice\u201d would somehow make \u201cperfect\u201d when what I wanted was music.\u00a0 Music like my father\u2019s brother singing \u201cRed River Valley,\u201d his thumb playing a simple bass line as he moved from chord to chord.\u00a0 Or like my father\u2019s sister strumming and singing verse after verse of \u201cI Can Tell You\u2019re a Logger \u2018Cause You Stir Your Coffee with Your Thumb\u201d as my cousin cut out the paper dresses for her dolls and I stacked blocks.\u00a0 I hadn\u2019t yet heard Cousin Steve do \u201cBe-Bop-A-Lula\u201d as he practiced his stage moves dreaming he\u2019d be a Rockabilly star, and, really, I don\u2019t think it had anything to do with the guitar (Cousin Bill&#8217;s?), unplayed, behind the couch at my aunt\u2019s house\u2014the one with the hula dancer painted on it and a pair of decorously set rhinestones to make it acceptably polite.<\/p>\n<p>So, why was I so determined that I would be a guitar and not a piano?\u00a0 Maybe because guitar was the music I wanted to be and piano was just notes.\u00a0 Maybe because guitar was a different way of having been poor across those Depression years before the war, and guitar meant you could go to whatever church you wanted\u2014or not go at all.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Contextual Material<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<p>For information on Merle Travis and Tennessee Ernie Ford, both invoked in &#8220;Please, God,&#8221; please see the entry for &#8220;Sixteen Tons&#8221; (coming soon).<\/p>\n<p>Gene Autry used the cowboy ballad, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ZAn4Wo9JzQc&amp;start_radio=1&amp;list=RDZAn4Wo9JzQc\">&#8220;The Red River Valley,&#8221;<\/a> as the featured song in his 1936 film,\u00a0<em>Red River Valley<\/em>, and released a re-recorded version in 1946.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Frozen Logger,&#8221; a tall tale, humorous ballad, was recorded by The Weavers in 1951.\u00a0 That might or might not have been how my Auntie Sue knew it, but know it she did.\u00a0 A logger woman herself, married to a logger man, she took (in my memory of things) a special delight in this song.\u00a0 As this site evolves, I hope to add the <em>National Geographic <\/em>photo of Sue and Oliver Hillman, posed against the cab of their logging truck.\u00a0 For now, here&#8217;s The Weavers&#8217; rendition of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=-9KWPeKiU-g\">&#8220;The Frozen Logger.&#8221;<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=vDU9FP5_B2M\">&#8220;Be-Bop-A-Lula&#8221;:<\/a> a 1956 Rockabilly hit for Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps (Capitol Records)<\/p>\n<p>My sullen picking at Row, Row, Row Your Boat was, I&#8217;m sure, less jaunty than <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=loZX3kpifqc\">this recording<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h4><a href=\"http:\/\/mainstreetragbookstore.com\/product\/ticket-stubs-liner-notes-tim-hunt\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Ticket Stubs &amp; Liner Notes<\/em> is available from Main Street Rag Publishing<\/a><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 1955 to play the piano is a social grace, a declaration that one is middle class, no matter one\u2019s roots\u2014a sign of having moved beyond your Depression era childhood and those days at school trying to pass for not poor.\u00a0 It\u2019s like being raised Baptist but going, instead, to the Methodist Church and pretending &#8230; <a title=\"Guitar or Piano, That is the Question (1955): &#8220;Please, God&#8221;\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/home\/guitar-or-piano-that-is-the-question-1955-please-god\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Guitar or Piano, That is the Question (1955): &#8220;Please, God&#8221;\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":8,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-134","page","type-page","status-publish"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/PapaTS-2a","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":371,"href":"https:\/\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/134\/revisions\/371"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tahunt.com\/ticketstubs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}