YouTube will be the death of me, I swear...but what a way to go.

Oh MY...

I've written about YouTube before, and posted some things from that site as well. But yesterday, I discovered a jewel. Yes, among crazy cat videos and homemade porn, I found this.





What is this? This is my first musical memory - where I saw Stevie Wonder for the first time.

I know I've written about it before, but I'll write about it again because it's MY BLOG and I WANNA.

Picture if you will...

_______

There's a house out in the country, about a mile from any paved road. It's a big white house, two stories...older house, but well-kept.

Inside that house is a little girl with long, brown hair in ponytails, playing with her Barbies while watching TV. She's sitting on the hardwood floor, without a care in the world. Not much is going on today, but "Sesame Street" is on, and Mommy lets her watch.

Letter songs and number songs play on the TV, and the little girl absently sings along, not really paying attention because she's heard them before. But it's something to do, so she does it.

Then, the drums start. These aren't marching band drums...or Indian drums. Nope. These are different.

The little girl looks up, suddenly fascinated. She sees a black man behind a piano. She's never really seen black people before - there are none in her town, at preschool, or at her church.

He's wearing sunglasses. The little girl mentally notes that she has sunglasses too, but hers have Tweety Bird on them.

That's not important, though...the man is singing, and other people are playing other instruments too. She knows what the trumpet is, but not sure of the curvy thing. She doesn't know the difference between a trap set and conga drums, or a bass guitar vs. a regular guitar. But she knows she likes the sound.

Other little kids are sitting on the stairs and the fire escape moving to the music. The little girl, at this point, really wants to be there. Her Barbies, with ragged hair and no shoes, drop to the floor as she becomes more and more mesmerized with this man. He sways - she sways. He sings - she tries to sing, but she doesn't know the words.

The mommy hears the "thumps", the "twangs", the "ta-na-na"s, and isn't sure what they are either. She comes in the living room and sees the little girl swaying back and forth, abandoned Barbies at her feet, ponytails flopping. A nuclear warhead could go off and that kid would not know about it, THAT's how absorbed she is.

"Sudie?" the mommy says, trying to break the stupor. "SUE ELLEN!"

"What?" the little girl says as she turns to face her mother, head still bobbing, ponytails flapping.
"What are you listening to?" the mommy asks, hands on hips, head cocked slightly.

"Stevie Wonder, mom- and he's GOOD!" The little girl is not sure how she knew the man's name; did Grover say it? She doesn't remember...she wants to finish listening.

The mommy's head nods slightly, but her face shows that she is just not sure how to proceed.

Mommy says "Oh-kayyyyy..." and goes back into the kitchen to do the dishes.

_____

I could have seen Stevie Wonder live TWICE in my lifetime. The first time was when he was on his "In Square Circle" tour, and they stopped in Iowa City. However, I felt guilty because I would have had to skip marching band, and since I was dating my band director's son, I figured it wasn't too cool to do that. On July 4th of this year, he performed at "A Capitol Fourth", and I missed that too. Oh well...I'll see him someday, even if I have to sell organs to get the dough.

But no matter what, Stevie was the one who woke me up to the power of music. Even though I don't sing soul or R&B like I want to, it's still the type of music that lifts me up when I'm down. I am so grateful for that gift of awakening, I can't put it into one perfect sentence. I'm just glad that it wasn't a dream or a faded childhood memory.

All I can say is thank you, Stevie.

Your fan for life,
Sudiegirl