Recently I took a trip to Nashville and Memphis. This part
of the country is the heart and the soul of the American music scene. The
blues, rock and roll and country music all sprung out of the south. I did the tourist
things visiting all the great music museums, as well as Sun Studios where the
first blues song was recorded and rock roll was born.
One of the great blues singers was Muddy Waters. As soon as
I heard his name I flashed back to my younger days when my ex-husband and I and
a group of friends spent hours listening to Muddy Water and the Blues. I
suddenly felt very young, hip and in the groove.
I looked around the room and noticed that most of the people
on this tour were over the age of fifty. Everyone was nodding and swinging to
the small excerpts of music our guide was playing as he told us the history of
southern music. We were all flashing back in time.
After this we went to BB Kings bar in downtown Memphis.
Memphis Jones was playing that night. He took us on a ride through time playing
songs from all the great legends of Memphis blues and rock and roll. Again I looked
around. The bar and the dance floor were full of people just like me, fifty and
older.
On the dance floor I watched a couple do the jitter bug.
They were really good. You could tell they had been doing this for a long time
together. The whole place was alive with youthful energy, Good music does
something to your soul that electrifies the mind and makes the body get up and
dance.
For a short time we all forgot about our arthritis, our
aging bodies and tired souls and began to dance, sing and applaud. Music
has a way of making time stand still and agelessness a reality. It’s in the soul!
Doctor Lynn
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