Music Triggers Bittersweet Memories

Terry, A Rendezvous to Remember, Ch 5: Alone, September 1963, Salt Lake City, Utah

Just recently, I came across an old vinyl album, “The Joy of Christmas,” in the back of our closet: Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

The album sends me back to September 1963: I was camping out near Salt Lake City, trying to figure out why I’d just lost another girlfriend. I wandered into the Mormon Tabernacle and happened upon the recording session for this album—”Joy to the World.” I’m not LDS, but listening live to those two groups, the New York Philharmonic and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, is something you don’t forget.

This, too, this “Joy of Christmas” is important music from my Sixties.