Joan Baez - We Shall Overcome

Time flies. It has been a month since I posted We Shall Overcome sung by Joan Baez at the White House for President Obama and family.

Today, Father's Day, I chanced upon this original version sung by Joan in 1963, the year her record was released. Notice it says "Original Vinyl 7" Single" on the cover. Yes, it walks me down memory lane. Kids of today have the Internet. They have E-Mail, Facebook, Twitter, Friendster, MySpace, You Tube, blogs and what have you. They also have Astro so that they can see live World Cup matches all the way from South Africa- some in HD, mind you. My generation (I was born in 1954) - we had nothing. No telephone, let alone IPhone or Smartphone. No radio (not the first few years of my life), let alone TV. The only entertainment was the cinema. Itupun pandai putus filem dan kerusi rotan dia ada bangking! The disco was not invented yet, let alone Karaoke. Kids nowadays are using MP3. Ours was the good old Vinyl Record like Joan's, even then it was only for those families who could afford one. The tape recorder came much later, in the 1960s, using literally tapes; unlike now digital. Then you had the big catridge which you play in the car, followed by the casette which was later replaced by the CD. So I grew up (in the 1960s) listening to the Beatles, Bee Gees, Shadows, Ventures, Rolling Stones, Cliff Richard, Elvis, etc on vinyl records or what Sabahans called Piring Hitam which literally means Black Record. If you tell this to kids nowadays, their standard reply will be: "Itu dulu!" (That was before). Sorry there is no picture of the young Joan on the record cover but anyway enjoy listening to the good old Piring Hitam. Kids nowadays are lucky because they call listen or watched what their parents used to decades ago - thanks to the Internet. The guys who invented Internet and You Tube should be given the Sabah Datukship or Malaysian Tan Sriship. Happy Father's Day. Happy listening!