Hi-Fi Before Wi-Fi (excerpt from chapter 2)

It's possible that the first music in your life was subliminal, in the background emanating from the kitchen radio, a church organ, maybe even the proverbial elevator. I instantly picture the late '50s and riding with my mother on a Goldblatts departtment store elevator, music contained in the moving box as the attendant announced each floor and its merchandise. It wasn't until later in my adult life that I pondered these things after reading a book called Elevator Music. Written by Joseph Lanza in 1994, it made me more aware of lightweight music with many names: Muzak, easy-listening, contemporary instrumental, and so forth. Yet, this is music that doesn't really sleep in our lives. It's there inside, like it or not! Elevator Music, which includes a few photos of antique album covers, took me back to growing up in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

My parents owned some of the record albums by Mantovani, 101 Strings, Mystic Moods Orchestra, Percy Faith and probably others in this strange genre. The music makes me envision Sunday afternoon naps, office buildings and shopping centers, ballparks and car radios, subways and airports, restaurants and waiting rooms and, of course, elevators. The sounds drone through our lives, endless copycats of music we may or may not want to remember. The background music comes to the foreground at times when we are involved in something else.

A good example of a Muzak contributor, in its "Dance" category, is Lawrence Welk. My parents, and their friends, loved his 1950s long-running television program, The Lawrence Welk Show. It was extremely popular in setting an atmosphere of champagne and toasts, waltzes and romantic dinner music. Welk, a strong Catholic with a humorous German accent, was a hit with his theme of family and middle-of-the-road values. "Champagne Music," as the term became known, was undoubtedly part of my parents' music inside. It's just "Wunnerful, Wunnerful," as Welk was fond of saying.