Growing Up on Rock & Roll: Chuck Berry, Little Richard and the Music of Our Youth

I grew up on "Hail, hail, rock and roll, deliver me from the days of old." Those words from Chuck Berry perfectly capture the soundtrack of my youth. Back then, music wasn't just something we listened to—it was something we lived. We didn't just know who sang a song. We knew who wrote it, who produced it, the year it was released, and even the record label. Every song had a story, and we wanted to know it all.
The minute our parents were out of sight—and out of hearing—we made a beeline for the radio. Our mission was simple: find the station that played the most music with the fewest commercials. Once we found it, we parked that dial there for the rest of the day. We sang every lyric, danced to every beat, and completely lost ourselves in the music. More than once, we became so caught up in the songs that the chores we'd been assigned were forgotten until someone came looking for us.

And when Little Richard blasted through the speaker with "A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop, a-lop-bam-boom! Tutti Frutti, aw, Rudy!"—well, you could probably hear us for miles. We sang it at the top of our lungs, not because we had perfect voices, but because we were having the time of our lives.  Those songs weren't just records spinning on a turntable or melodies coming through a radio. They became the soundtrack of our childhood, filling our home with energy, laughter, and memories that have stayed with me ever since.