DON’T LET THE SMOOTH TASTE FOOL YA

My Lifelong Not-So-Guilty Love of Soft Rock

I was a child of the 70’s and 80’s. Those years we’re full of discovery. Especially when it came to music. Beginning in the late 70’s, I would spend summers in Tucson, Arizona with my grandparents. Each July, my mom would drive my brother and I from Whittier, California to Yuma, Arizona. Yuma was the handoff point. We would all meet at Sizzler, eat the buffet lunch, and then hit the road towards Tucson. My mom made her way back to California. It was during those drives from Yuma to Tucson where my developing ears were enveloped in AM radio.

Each summer I spent two months in the sizzling summer heat. Nightly drives to the local Dairy Queen and walking every inch of my grandma’s property looking at her variety of cacti. The monsoon season was by far my favorite time of the summer. The lightning storms in Tucson are second to none. To this day, I still love the smell of the desert after a downpour. The after-rain aroma of creosote still calms me. The buzzing of the cicadas still wrap me with a sense of security and floods me with memories of those long hot summers in Arizona.

By now you’re probably wondering what the desert and music have to do with each other. On a personal level, a lot!

You see…the desert smell, the buzzing of the insects, and the AM radio all had a profound impact on me.

Each morning (around 6am) I would hear music eminating from the kitchen. My grandpa was an early riser. He’d sit in the kitchen stirring his coffee mug over and over and over again. I would hear the spoon hit the side of the mug for at least 5 minutes. While he stirred he was listening to his portable transistor radio. He had the same station playing each morning. It was a local Tucson Soft Rock station. I can’t recall the station call letters. What I do recall is the music itself. It wasn’t quite 50’s or 60’s Rock n Roll. It wasn’t Country or Swing. It was soothing and mellow. It had hooks and melodies. Looking back now, the songs were well written and the production impeccable. In the last decade or so, people refer to it as “Yacht Rock”. I guess we can thank Christopher Cross for that.

What made me fall for this sub-genre of rock? Was it the soothing production? The saxophones? The chimes? The Fender Rhodes? The understated string arrangements? The soft strumming of the 12 string acoustic guitar? Maybe it was the subject matter in which these songwriters were talking about. I think it was all of the above and then some. What came out of that tiny transistor radio speaker had a profound affect on me.

The atmosphere in which I discovered Soft Rock probably aided in the deep love of this. My grandpa and I sitting there each morning listening to the music for hours as the swamp cooler kept us cool. It was at that very table where I discovered the likes of Grover Washington Jr., George Benson, Leo Sayer, Dr. Hook, Exile, Ambrosia, Player, and Ace to name a few. Even though this music has a calming effect on the listener, the songs are extremely powerful. As an adult looking back, I realize these artists took their time honing their sound and most likely poured over each little piece of the production process. I think Soft Rock gets a bad wrap. It’s the butt of the joke. It’s dudes like Jimmy Fallon using the music as the redheaded stepchild for skits. Lame.

As I grew older, my music taste started to expand into Rap and Rock ‘N Roll. But, I never gave up on Soft Rock. Sure, the sound fell out of favor in the late-80’s. Yet, I still spent those summers, at that kitchen table; listening, absorbing, and learning.

In late-summer 1987, I was blasting the album “Paid in Full” by Eric B. and Rakim, but I was also playing Bob Welch, Leo Sayer, and Robbie Dupree to name a few (ok, commence eye-rolling). Actually, I have no shame. I love this stuff. It’s amazing how music affects you. A song can still trigger a flood of memories and it makes you feel so good (insert Chuck Mangione reference)

Music is still my drug of choice. Music is still a part of every waking moment of my life. I can’t help it. It’s burned into my DNA. It flows in my veins.

Below is a handcrafted music playlist I created containing several artists and songs to check out. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Take a deep listen and remember to keep digging. There are thousands upon thousands of undiscovered artists out there.

Look beyond the genre tag “Yacht Rock” and just listen to the music.

•• If you enjoyed reading this, please click the ♥ below. This will help to share the story with others.

Thanks for Listening and Reading,

SCOTTIE DIABLO ~ em: scottiediablo at icloud.com