power of music

Yesterday morning Hiba cam up to my office to pick up the State Department work requests. She saw my guitar lying on my desk. “Do you play sir?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“I love guitar music, very beautiful. Do you know the song by country music singer, uh, Garth Brooks?”
“I can play The Dance.”
“Yes, the Dance, very beautiful.” I picked up my guitar, a Yamaha classical (C-70) I bought at the souk (flea market). I had to tune it because walking from 100 degree desert air into an air conditioned building reeks havoc on strings. But it’s a uniform havoc, two twists on each string brought it back up and in tune. I played the Dance, one of my favorite country music songs of the 1990’s. It always reminds me of race car driver Davey Allison because when he died in 1993 this was the song to play as a tribute. I didn’t sing very loud and Hiba sang along with me. She has a soft, pretty voice with an Arabic flare on the words. “That was very nice. I want to learn to play piano…”
When she walked out the Master Seargent in our office said, “Sir, I think you could have an Arabic wife if you wanted one,”. Yeah, I guess I could forget about the Russian mail order bride.
I had my guitar in to practice with LtCol V on the song we were supposed to play later that night at Commander’s Call.. He wrote a song about Baghdad based on Jerry Jeff Walker’s London Homesick Blues. Trouble is I’ve never heard the song so had to figure out the chords from just him humming the tune. While we practiced Maj S (Sheldon) walked in and asked me what songs I knew. I told him mostly old school country which he said was right up his alley. It isn’t often you meet a black guy who knows an extensive catalog of old country music.
So last night Sheldon and I were the opening act. The event was held outside by the pool, there were about 120 members of the JASG there. We sang “Old Flame” by Alabama and everybody clapped. Then after dinner before we kicked off the awards ceremony Sheldon sang “The Dance” while I played guitar. Then at LtCol V sang his song. He started without waiting to get the pitch from me so while I played in the key we’d practiced in (E), he sang in various keys which I never found. But it was still a good song, he made up some funny words about Marines and how the State Department blocks progress on any issue they become involved with. Cynicism is sanity in the military.
To round out the evening, at the Commander’s request Sheldon sang “The Angry American” by Toby Kieth while I beat the hell out of my guitar. It sounded really good.
The power of music is amazes me. In one day it bridged cultures between an American hillbilly and a devout Muslim girl and later it helped galvanize a sometimes demoralized group of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines into unified team, cheering, drinking near beer and having a good time. Years ago my grandmother told me I’d always be popular as long as I played my guitar. Well, at any rate I’m always the guy with the guitar.