Music & Family

 Introducing: Hope Lineberry 

Like I've mentioned in several of my previous blog posts, my parents have both had a huge impact on my musical life. When I realized I was going to be interviewing a family member about the impact music has had on their life, I became very excited to talk to my mom. 

My mom is one of the biggest (if not THE biggest) supporters of my musical endeavors. Whether I'm writing a new song, noodling around on my guitar, or performing in a voice recital, she's there to cheer me on. Whenever I hear a really awesome new song, my mom is the first person I send it to.  So much of my relationship with my mom is built upon our love for music and sharing that music with each other. My mom has exposed me to so many talented artists who eventually became my musical inspirations. Come to think of it, I don't know if I'd be a musician if it wasn't for my mom. Since my mom and I's relationship with music is so special, I couldn't wait to hear what her personal relationship with music is like. Since Mom listens to such a wide variety of music, choosing which artists to feature in this blog was extraordinarily difficult. While I recognize I have embedded a lot of music, I highly recommend that you listened to at least a little bit of each video. I thoroughly enjoyed learning about my mom's ongoing musical journey, and I hope (haha sorry mom!) you enjoy hearing about it as much as I did. 

Music of Childhood

When I asked her what her earliest memory of music was, Mom said her earliest memory was of Prince. "My sister Renee was all about some prince. We were living in Germany and my sister’s favorite color was purple and that was when prince’s purple rain album came out. Sis would do gymnastics routines to it. I just loved the music". Mom said she recalled loving Prince's music because it made her excited and want to dance. When Prince's Purple Rain album came out, Hope was about four years old.

Hearing that my mom's earliest memory of music was of Prince was really interesting to me. Even though I knew my mom loved Prince, I would have never guessed her earliest memories of music would be with his music. Prince died April 21 0f 2016. I was a freshman in high school when Prince died. I remember the day vividly because when I walked into choir, instead of practicing for our upcoming choir concert, we spent the entire class listening to his music. Even though I was pretty young, I was old enough to know we had lost one of the greatest artists of all time.

Me: "How did you feel when you found out Prince died?"

Hope: "Man that sucks! I'll never get to see him in concert. He's one of those music icons that there will never be anyone like him again. There will never be another Prince. It was just really disappointing. It made me appreciate his music that much more."

Music of Middle School

Let's all take a minute and think back to the kind of music we were listening to during our middle school years. How do you feel about the music you listened to while you were in middle school? Do you still listen to any of that music now? Are you embarrassed by any of your music? If you're anything like me, you're probably embarrassed by the music you listened to when you were in middle school. My mom on the other hand, thinks very fondly of the music she listened to during that time of her life.

 "I was listening to so much music in middle school. Hip-hop, R & B, and rap. Grunge had just come out and was huge. I was listening to a lot of old rock and roll because that’s what my stepdad listened to. I listened to everything. Nothing was off limits", Hope recalled.

In my first blog post, "My Musical Culture", I mentioned that both of my parents listened to a very wide range of music. My mom's middle school preferences are a testament to her musical diversity. Even though remembering all the artists she was listening to at the time was hard, some of her top artists were No Doubt, D' Angelo, Nirvana, TLC, Keith Sweat, Bob Marley, and Lenny Kravitz. That's quite the list, huh? During her middle school years, Mom was already listening to a wider spectrum of music than most adults!

Lenny Kravitz

"Our generation didn't have a TV in every room, cellphones, and you were lucky if you had a computer in the house", Hope said. "Music was sacred. You spent a lot of time in you room listening to music. We had boom boxes or stereos in our rooms and that's how we listened to it. I used to hate the fact that I spent so much time in my room as a teenager but, I realize that it taught me how to create a sacred space and enjoy music."

Another big part of her middle school days was school dances. Hope recalls school dances being a big deal because other than concerts, it was the only place people her age could go and hear music.

" Oh man and the school dances were always epic. School dances were a big deal because not everybody got to go to concerts. When we got to go to dances and the DJ played music it was exciting, because we all got to hear and share music with each other"

Even though you may be embarrassed of your middle school self's music taste, Hope believes that we have nothing to be ashamed of. "I still love the music from my middle school years. I think it’s stupid to be ashamed of something you liked. There are some songs I don’t like any more, but for the most part, I still listen to a lot of the music." While talking to my mom, she mentioned that even though there is some music from middle school that she doesn't like anymore, it is a good representation of where she was at mentally and emotionally during that time frame.

Music of High School

Once she started high school, Hope's listening habits evolved. Now that she had a car, the radio was how she listened to most of her music. Since she was captain of her competitive cheer team, she also spent a lot of time searching for music to choreograph routines to for competition. Even though she would still listen to music at home in her room, my mom was busy so more often than not, she was listening to music while in the car on her way to school, work, or extracurricular activities.

"I got my license, and I had my own car, so of course I always had the radio on. My car didn’t have a CD player it only had a cassette player. I had an old, old, Bangles tape from the 80s and I would play The Bangles on repeat." The Bangles "Hazy Shade of Winter" was one of my mom's favorite songs off of her Bangles tape. She used to rewind the cassette over and over to hear it. 

Aside from her Bangles cassette tape, Hope also had a Snoop Dogg tape and a couple of mixes she had made by recording songs off the radio. During high school, she also remembers listening to Limp Bizkit, Jewel, Fiona Apple, 311, Sublime, Rage Against the Machine and Missy Elliott.

Have you ever thought about how your relationships influence the music you listen to? My parents are high school sweethearts. When they started dating in high school, they began sharing a lot of music with each other. "I listened to more rap because I was dating your dad and he was all about Wu Tang Clan, Biggie, and Tupac. Your dad also loved The Fugees." Have your romantic partners and friends influenced the kind of music you listen to? If so, how?

Early Twenties 

Aretha Franklin

My parents got married and had me when they were about twenty years old. I'm really excited to talk about the music from this time of my mom's life because I was around for some of it. I remember her listening to this music when I was a toddler. You may ask "Michaela, why would you interview her about this music if you already know some of her answers?" While studying music therapy, I read somewhere that the music you listen to in your twenties is the music you think the most fondly of. For this reason, I wanted to talk to Mom and see what she had to say. 

Justin Timberlake

While talking to Mom, she told me that she developed a love for Motown in her twenties. "The first thing that comes to mind is Aretha Franklin. That sounds like a weird answer because it’s out of time, but the early 2000s is when I fell in love with Aretha Franklin." She began listening to lots of Aretha Franklin and Etta James. Around this time frame, she discovered one of my favorite artists and biggest musical inspirations, Joss Stone (you may remember her from my first blog post).

At this point in time, CDs were how everyone listened to music." I was young and broke and didn’t have a lot of my own music, so I listened to a lot on the radio. A lot of the music that I had was from friends who burned me CDs. I worked for the daily press and one of my coworkers had a computer we could rip CDs on. We would all bring the CDs we had and then share music to burn CDs while we were at work." A couple of other artists she began listening to included John Mayer, Justin Timberlake, and Maroon 5.

John Mayer

Final Remarks 

At the end of the interview, I turned to ask Mom one more question. 

Me: "Is there one song/album that is particularly meaningful to you?"

Hope: "This is a really hard question. I can't even begin to pick a favorite song because there's music that helped me with friendships, music that helped me with boyfriends, music that helped me with family problems, music that helped with self-esteem. I can’t just pick one meaningful song or album."

I feel like the statement above is incredibly profound. While music is something that we use for leisure, it is much bigger than that. Music is something that connects us to one another and expresses the human experience in ways that words cannot. Music is empathy, passion, expression, and most importantly; music is for living.

Thank you so much for reading this blog and joining me as I learned about music and it's impact on my mom, Hope. Have a beautiful rest of your day!

Love and light always,

-Michaela Faye