REMINISCING

I was born during the late fifties -- the era when rock 'n' roll had just started to dawn although Marlon Brando once said in an interview that rock 'n' roll was born way back in the thirties, my mother and father's heydays. I can still remember how my Kuya (Gilbert) would then play his five-string guitar while prodding me on to sing "Let Me Be Your Teddy Bear" by Elvis the Pelvis. He's a big fan of Elvis, you know. My mother would just grin and would give an ear as she goes about her daily household chores.

When I was three, my father (before he died) would take us to his office's Christmas party and would egg me and my older brother to sing in front of his officemates. It was always a case of my mother cajoling me to go up the stage first with me sheepishly refusing unless my brother would do his stint ahead. After him, I would readily render "Love Me Tender" to the delight of my father who endlessly beamed with pride. All these are but reminiscences after a year has passed and with my father gone.

During grade school days, I was a bit of a "star" in school. I would often be asked to sing for my classmates in a number of impromptu programs organized by one of my teachers. This was, of course, before regular classes commenced. Before my turn, I would sing to myself so as not to falter later on. As I was called, I'd stand in front of the class, without much ado and ho-hums, and do my thing, a cappella.

One time, as we were busy preparing for a big school festival where I was asked to sing (the teachers did not hold second thoughts about choosing me as a program participant-performer all because I was too gutsy to stand up and be heard), a schoolmate volunteered to provide my number with a guitar accompaniment. Much to my glee, we practiced real hard "Hurtin' Inside" by the Dave Clark Five. But when it was time for us to perform, we discovered that his guitar, which he carelessly left lying on the table before our number, was just insanely out of tune! If only he thought of properly placing the guitar atop the table with the strings lying flat on the surface, we would not have panicked and be gobbled up by jitters.  Worse yet, my partner hasn't learned the art of tuning his own guitar. Well, as the old adage goes, the show must go on. And it did just as well. The twanging of those out-of-this-world chords to accompany my song left my ears terribly hurting the day after and many more days to come. But despite this minute misfortune, we were applauded, only to find out in the end that the bravado was meant for trying... hard.

My older brother had an above-average guitar player friend for he knew the chords of songs by such biggies then as the Beatles, Zombies and Bee Gees, to name a few. We'd all sit atop our school's fence (which was just a stone's throw away from our house in San Juan) at nighttime and jam to our hearts' content. Those were the good old days.

High school came as I was about to get started playing the guitar on my own. I used to borrow an old beat up guitar from a friend and play my heart out until my fingers were very sore. My Kuya upon seeing me nurturing an interest in music, with my incessant requesting, brought home different songbooks with guitar chords that I may use for practice. But to my dismay, I discovered that the chords and lyrics were erroneous. It was perhaps my penchant for music that made me feel I was right. I even strummed some bars and sang some lines to my Kuya to prove my point. My impish insistence elicited a nod of seeming approval from him.

After some time, my Kuya decided to publish a music magazine. He consulted my mother who, after a series of deliberation, decided to pawn part of our property as bank collateral so as to obtain a sizeable loan to finance our business. My Kuya approached some willing artist-friends and asked them for help in brainstorming the music mag. He also conferred with a lot of musicians (band members, actually) and asked for their share by taking on the task of obtaining the chords and lyrics of what was hitting it big during those days. Thus, JINGLE was born (October 1970, to be exact). The rest is history.

***This was first published in Music of the 60's (Best of JINGLE Series No. 4).