I finally found my dad's favorite musician after searching for 20 years.
By @milokay · Family
My dad passed away when I was little, and he had this one cassette tape he loved that had no label. I've been trying to identify the music on it my entire adult life, and I finally did it.
The full story
This is going to sound so small and maybe silly to some people, but I feel like I just solved the biggest mystery of my life. My dad passed away from a heart attack when I was eight, so my memories of him are kind of foggy, like watching an old home movie. One of the clearest things I remember is him driving our old station wagon, listening to this one cassette tape. He'd hum along to it and tap the steering wheel. It was this really gentle, kind of sad but beautiful acoustic guitar music. After he died, that tape was one of the only things I kept for myself. The problem was, it was a dubbed copy. Just a plain cassette with no writing on it, no case, nothing. As I got older, I became obsessed with finding out who the artist was. I mean, this was pre-Shazam, pre-internet being what it is now. In college, I took the tape to music professors, I went to record stores and tried to hum the melodies for the clerks. Nobody had a clue. I tried to post recordings of it on forums in the 2000s, but the audio quality was terrible and nobody could help. It became this little quest I'd pick up every couple of years. My husband has been so patient, listening to me play this muffled tape over and over, trying new search terms online. 'Male acoustic guitarist 1980s solo' is a very, very long list of people, it turns out. But last week, I was just scrolling through a streaming service's rabbit hole of curated playlists, something like 'Lost 70s Folk Instrumentals,' and then I heard it. It wasn't just a similar song. It was THE song. The first track on an album by a guy I'd never heard of, released in 1978. It wasn't a famous album at all, which is why it was so hard to find. I just started sobbing. My husband came running in, thinking something terrible had happened. I just pointed at the screen and said, 'That's him. That's my dad's music.' It felt like I got a little piece of him back. Like he was in the room with me for a second, humming along.
How people voted
- OP Is Right — 21% (9 votes)
- Both Messy — 44% (19 votes)
- OP Is Wrong — 35% (15 votes)
Readers are split: “Both Messy” leads with 44% — 43 votes and 5 comments so far.
What people are saying
@codyok — This isn't silly at all. It's a connection to your dad. That's a huge deal.
@oopsie — Who voted 'other side' on this? What is wrong with you people?
@karakindof — Ok but now you have to tell us the name of the artist!
@hankish — I'm not crying, you're crying.
@colemaybe — This is so beautiful. I'm literally tearing up reading this. So happy for you.
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