My first memory of vinyl records was the discovery of a modest stack of vinyl leaning against the side of the cabinet where my father kept his stereo and cassettes. I remember the stack including names like Carole King, The Mamas & The Papas, Bruce Springsteen, and Jefferson Starship. Cassettes were the new wave and my parents saw no reason to keep all of the old records around, I suppose. Other than a stint of piano lessons, which my sister and I ultimately revolted against, I was not ushered toward a musical future by parents of the musical cloth. Though I enjoy reading those stories as much as anyone, I don’t have one to tell. It wasn’t until into my teens that I acquired my first LP, and began a collection.
By this time I had picked up the guitar, was writing songs, and was wildly more interested in modest stacks like the one I had found in my father’s cabinet. I found another such stack at an aunt’s house on my father’s side up in Erath, Louisiana, cajun country, where Duhon is pronounced Du-yaw as the Cajun French would have it. The stack was mostly country music and my Aunt welcomed my picking through them and taking a few home. The appeal of the records at that point was the very tactile feeling of a valuable history not so long ago both in music and in family. The names scribbled in pen on each record to claim ownership were names I recognized. They were my aunts, uncles, grandparents, likely written when they were my age, and I remember thinking what it must have been like to grow up with the artists I was flipping though at the forefront of the music world. The names included Loretta Lynn, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, but the first record I laid claim to in the stack, and ultimately the first record I was to own was Johnny Cash’s “Live at Folsom Prison.”
Like most people my age with record collections, I was to acquire a stack of records before I had anything to play them on, but eventually the player came, then more records, and these days I have a couple of record shops along my regular touring route that I rarely pass up without dropping in. I think there is a fear in me that my mp3’s will get lost in the binary code, the CD’s will crack beneath the car seats, and I won’t have the music of my youth around when I want to revisit it and share it when I am an uncle, but records dispel that fear in me. I believe my Johnny Cash record has something more to tell than an mp3. Its certainly been around longer, and I intend to keep it around until I can pass it along.
Andrew Duhon is a folk/blues songwriter from New Orleans. He regularly tours throughout the southeast, and has released two recordings: “Songs I Wrote Before I Knew You” produced by 3 time grammy winner, Trina Shoemaker, and his latest EP, “Dreaming When You Leave”, produced by four-time grammy winner, John Snyder. Check out his music and more at www.andrewduhon.com.
