Our great vacation at the end of 1958 took us to Miami. It was my first airplane flight! We left New York in the cold of winter and landed in some kind of sunny paradise...which lasted for about a day. We had a beautiful day in Miami and 6 days and nights of rain.

Here's where we stayed. It's no longer in existence but man, it was cool!

Because of the rain my sister and I spent many hours in the game room and I learned the joys of jukebox music. Our folks had given us some spending money and we converted what we had into quarters so we could keep the jukebox playing. Still just a young lad, these songs quickly burned their way in.

This one, by Tommy Edwards, is like heaven. Someone wrote that the music in heaven is Mozart's but I would guess, if there is such a place, that it's more personal for each of us. It's All in the Game would certainly qualify for me, heard at an early age so I was completely open to it.

[video:http://youtu.be/Gtizr2G_7Bk#sthash.YefGgdxu.dpuf]

One last ballad before things start hopping. Long before he was a killer, even before he was a hit-making producer, Phil Spector was a songwriter and singer, here with his group, The Teddy Bears. Too bad he's so rotten. What a talent! But I wouldn't want to be in the same building with him.

To me at that time, anything from teenagers on up was "adult sophistication". While this next song doesn't compare to Tommy Edwards in that department it still has that grownup "rat-a-tat-tat". Only the coolest could come up with such a phrase! I love the guitar work and have used that style often. Bad news for Shaharazade: I want one of those jackets!

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8F4vdF-bJc]

Why oh why did Bobby Darin go the Sinatra style route?? He was such a good rock n' roller. This example features one of my favorite guitar bits. It's the rhythm thing that goes click-a-clickity in the background.

And speaking of "the hop", here's a huge hit for Danny and the Juniors. Dig that crazy drumming! By the time I was old enough to go to dances they were "dances" and not "hops". They must have been huge in 1957/1958, with Queen of the Hop, At the Hop, Jerry Lee Lewis' song that talks about "boppin' at the high school hop".

[video:https://youtu.be/HIXMKA7d4to]

Way back in those days, following a thing called World War Two, husbands and wives were reunited and started having babies. By 1958 many of these youngsters had spending money and a whole bunch of songs featured "nonsense" lyrics that appealed to the kids, me included! These next two are still among my favorites. "I wonder, wonder, who-um-be-do-oo-oo".

[video:https://youtu.be/qIfuNPbBaaA]

And now, a tune still in my personal Top 25 of All-Time! I heard the chorus as "sha da da da". The group Sha Na Na heard it differently. Now I sometimes think they're singing "sha la la la" with an R&B inflection. Whatever, it's great!

[video:https://youtu.be/SzWkqfQ17Eo]

My darling wife Shaharazade thinks these lads sound like rats. She also thinks some of my favorite Mersey Beat groups sound that way. The Everlys taught many kids about harmony. When I became a Buddy Holly fanatic (see below) I learned harmony by pretending I was Phil Everly adding a harmony to Buddy's songs. This particular Everly Brothers song was one we listened to an awful lot that week.

[video:https://youtu.be/tbU3zdAgiX8]

And finally, this is the one that did it. Maybe if I'd been two years older I'd have been an Elvis nut. As it turned out, Buddy Holly was "the One!". You can't really explain why you like something. Maybe there are similarities in how the brain works, like a frequency or something. After Buddy died I "bought" my first album ever, The Buddy Holly Story, and pretty much wore it out.

[video:https://youtu.be/0IUV-QxwlRM]

So that was a pretty interesting week. We flew back to snow, ending the vacation but I was now off and running, on the road to being a musician...