Add some music to your day
As a 6-year-old, my parents bought me my very first album. The Jackson 5’s “ABC” sparked my love of music and continues to perpetuate that passion every day since that fateful moment in 1970.
Good music serves as a soundtrack to our lives. It’s played during weddings, birthdays, graduations, sporting events, movies, church services and funerals. Music evokes a variety of emotions as well as memories from special moments of our past.
The Beach Boys released a fabulous track from 1970’s “Sunflower” album that speaks to the importance and influence of music as the band sings, “The Sunday morning gospel goes good with the soul/There’s blues, folk, and country, and rock like a rollin’ stone/The world could come together as one/If everybody under the sun/Add some music to your day.”
I’ve met a lot of people while penning music reviews over the last nine years. None have been more special than Agnes Soom of Uniontown. Soom recently left this earth at the grand age of 87, although she managed to possess the energy and enthusiasm of a teenager. I have a hunch that her love for music is what kept her young and vibrant.
She loved Engelbert Humperdinck and the songs he passionately performed. She first contacted me several years ago to ask if I would write a review about Humperdinck. After only a few minutes, I could clearly tell she was a huge fan as she recited her favorite songs from the singer. She explained how her apartment was filled with pictures of the star and how she would celebrate his birthday every year with a cake and small party.
I had been familiar with the music icon’s talent since my mother was also a faithful fan during the early 1970s. I can still fondly recall the sounds of classic Humperdinck hits like “There Goes My Everything” and “A Man Without Love” serenading my mother as she prepared dinner.
After writing my first Humperdinck review, Soom would regularly stay in touch with me over the years and provide updates on what was happening in the singer’s career. I think back and smile as I remember the time she called to declare that Humperdinck had personally called her to send along his well wishes while she was in the hospital with an ailing leg. She was like a kid on Christmas morning as she described the conversation. I’m thoroughly convinced that his call aided in her speedy recovery.
Humperdinck used to say that he could hit notes a bank couldn’t cash and there’s no doubt that Soom hung on every one of them.
On the bittersweet “The Last Waltz,” Humperdinck solemnly sings, “It’s all over now/Nothing left to say/Just my tears and the orchestra playing.” I would like to think that in heaven the orchestra is continuously playing a glorious set of the singer’s arrangements for Soom as she makes sure to add some music to her day.