It wasn’t for many of my childhood years until I realized another kind of music existed beyond Country (and also Western, as the joke goes). I remember turning on a radio in someone else’s house and American Pie was playing. This wasn’t Johnny Cash or Merle Haggard or Jeannie C. Riley. I was intrigued. Of course, my mother came in the room and acted like I had set off a fire alarm. Turn that shit down honey. It’s too loud! But try as she might to suppress it, the cat was out of the bag. During our stay at that home – Grandma’s no less – I found out about Kansas and Boston and Elton John. Continue reading