The DU Lounge

I was a teenager in the early 80's who didn't like country music, and who knew.almost nothing about Chet Atkins. But I liked rock groups like Dire Straits.

One day, I was playing a Dire Straits album on my stereo. Dad stopped to listen as he was walking by, and he asked me who was playing the guitar? "He's really talented!" He could also tell, just from listening for a minute or so, that Knopfler was a "finger picker" (like how my Dad played guitar).

My father was in his 40's when I was born in the late-60's, so he always seemed old and out of touch with modern culture when I was a teenager. But to my surprise, Dad soon thereafter had Dire Straits cassette tapes in his car! He bought them on his own. I just happened to come across them in his car months later.

In the mid-50's, long before I came along, Dad sang and played guitar on a local radio station when they had weekend talent contests. Mom eventually put an end to it because she heard teenage girls screaming in the background after Dad started to perform. Hearing that story REALLY blew my mind! Dad would smile and say (I think jokingly) that he was Elvis "before there was an Elvis", at least until Mom put an end to it.