SOUSA MEMORY

posted by James Reel

    Listener Robert E. Harris, a retired chemist, offers this thought after the past weekend's Tucson Symphony Sousa concerts:

    My late father-in-law, Jerry A. Harn, was as teetotal as could be. He was city attorney for Galesburg, Illinois in the 1930's.   When Sousa and his band came to town, naturally, Mr. Harn got the job of buying some whiskey so Sousa could have a drink (or maybe two.)
    Mr. Harn was a reserve officer in the US Army, and ended up as a Col. in the US Air Force reserve.  He and his family stayed in Claremont, CA after WW II, which is where I met my future wife.
    I like Sousa, as I played a lot of clarinet parts in Sousa marches when I was in high school band in the late 1940's.
    The pops programming I hate is overamplified (so much so that my ears hurt) and consists of reprises of pop tunes that I mostly did not like at all 50 or 60 years ago. Give me Sousa, or well done Beetles, or Leroy Anderson, or Spike Jones or Elvis (but not Hound Dog) or show tunes from musicals, but not so loud!