"CBJ" 2. Technically, there are some songs in number 2 that I had acquired since the first tape or just couldn't fit on the original discography, so it didn't harm the "concept" of the original tape. The "juke box" now has 79 country tunes in it, which would amount to three cassette tapes.
Charley Brown's Jukebox was about living in the home of jazz and R&B and being exposed to country music only through this bar that I visited as a twelve and thirteen year old kid ordering lunch for my dad and his two other "employees". The food was always good, but the service was slow, so I got to hear lots of tunes.
As you remember, programming the tape was a pain. It was the research and juxtaposition of songs in a mini concept that was so much fun. The physical act of placing it on tape was tedious and too much like what I do for a living. Many of those songs were of the "crying in your beer type". After all, Charlie Brown's bar was barroom that was dark, moody and kinda smelly with lots of patrons leaning over their beer as they confide with the bartender, who very well could have been Charlie Brown, himself. To a teenager, the smell of red beans and rice or poor boys and stale beer, the sad songs, mostly in minor keys, and the sights of people, who became a fixture there everyday, made those songs all the more intriguing and added a little something to it that many people today just don't think much about. Ron, it's guys like you that understand and appreciate those times so well, that make life so rich... thanks!
