Anita Brewer

     There was a decade when the most listened to music was easy to understand, easy on the ears and easy on the mind.  When the Hit Parade hit TV, the entire nation was tuned in to the Top 10.  Then rock and roll happened.  Lyrics had to be interpreted.  Bass guitars through house-sized speakers made hearing mechanisms bleed.  Music began to draw dividing lines in age-group psyches.
     Seventy-year old people were teens when the change came.  Most felt the evolution via Elvis but a few of us had already been exposed to a WLAC-Nashville station which played the true crossover rhythm and blues to rock, by artists on labels which had to be ordered through the mail to play on our 45's.  It was in the late hours after the girls had to be in that we'd pick up the strongest signal from our southeast Ohio vantage.  After a few beers and fighting sleep, we'd be zapped to attention behind the new beat coming through those car speakers on a high hilltop.
     We knew who Presley was imitating and why he was wigging-out white audiences of carried away chicks.
     Folks born in the late 1930's sang in grade school.  In my third grade, the teacher would move us to the auditorium for a sing-off.  Individuals would stand on the stage and sing.  The class would vote the best of the final two.
    Anita sang ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT in a sweet soprano that topped us all.  But I was voted best.  Probably due to my show-off attitude versus her seriousness.