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daddy derek
Hitting a Happy Note
By Derek James
W
e are a musical family. When I say that, I don’t mean we
have dreams of traveling the country in a colorfully painted
school bus like the Partridge Family. My wife is a classically trained
singer who is a high-school chorus director. Before transitioning to
television, I was a radio station program and music director who was
involved in the process of selecting songs that made it to the airwaves.
I’ve also been known to sing every lyric to Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start
the Fire” or Elvis’ “Suspicious Minds” at the drop of a hat.
Music has been part of our sons’ lives from the moment they
were born. I’m the nerd who made a labor-and-delivery playlist for
the hospital. I’m confident my wife Kristen’s favorite song from 2008,
Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida,” is in my oldest son Tyler’s DNA. In their
early years, both boys went to sleep with songs from Baby Mozart,
Baby Einstein and Babyface. OK, maybe that last one is a stretch. We
listen to music while enjoying dinner and conversation as a family
almost every night. Tyler and Chase love singing along to songs on
the radio and the crazy lyrics they hear on Radio Disney like “Watch
me whip, watch me nae nae.” At Christmas time, we sit around the
piano and sing Christmas carols. My boys have also seen my awful
parodies of the Bee Gees, DMX and Vanilla Ice on WCCB News
Rising … and they still love music.
Music helps shape memories. I have vivid memories as a kid of
going to the Country Kitchen restaurant and selecting music on the
small jukebox in the booth. I probably played Eddy Grant’s “Electric
Avenue” more than Casey Kasem did in 1983. I’ve shared my love of
the ’80s with my boys. We used to listen to Tyler randomly sing “Video
Killed the Radio Star” on the baby monitor when he was 2 years old.
Chase loves The Cars’ “You Might Think” and Toto’s “Africa,” among
others. The latter became even more popular after students in my wife's
class performed the song at their end-of-year pops concert.
Each summer, we join my wife’s family at the beach. From a
re-creation of the Stylistics’ falsettos to the dulcet tones of Frank
Sinatra, there’s joyful singing (and dancing) all around. Our kids make
connections and create associations between family members and their
favorite songs and music genres. By being exposed to so many varieties
of music, my kids seem to have a greater appreciation of the art. Their
favorite songs right now might be what’s on the latest volume of “Now
That’s What I Call Music” or “Kidz Bop,” but they’ve also been exposed
to The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Michael Jackson and James Brown. It’s
something they can appreciate even more when they are older.
It’s too early to tell if our kids might make a career out of music,
but they understand that music brings people together and can create
a mood. They’ve seen firsthand the emotional connections it can
bring. Now if I can just get them to stop singing “Watch me whip,
watch me nae nae,” I’ll feel a little better.
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Derek James is a host on WCCB News Rising and dad to Tyler, 8,
and Chase, 5.
charlotteparent.com |
September 2016
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