Of Summer, Spring, Fall & Rebecca Frazier’s “High Country Road Trip”

As a teenager in my slice of suburban Philly circa the late 1970s, summer translated to lazy mornings and fun-filled afternoons. Friends gathered to play this or that outside game—sometimes in the street, other times in a driveway, and on rare occasion the park. No matter where we were, however, a radio tuned to one of the region’s Top 40 stations blared in the background. Rock, country, R&B/soul and, yes, disco tunes sauntered from its speaker and attached themselves to memories that linger, still.  

Summer lasted forever. It was, as a kid, my favorite time of year.

Money was tight, however, so while friends and their families enjoyed week-long sojourns to the Poconos, Jersey shore and more exotic locales, my folks designed budget-minded day or weekend trips to further the family bond: Hershey Park and the SuperDooperLooper, Dorney Park and its kid-friendly rocket ships, Lancaster County and shoofly pie, plus history-minded forays to Washington, D.C., and Gettysburg. We also traveled to western Pennslvania to visit my uncle, his family and dairy farm a few times. The car radio was almost always on for those trips, but not tuned to any music station. My dad preferred the news and talk radio.

Not even a decade on, a college buddy and I occasionally ventured into the wilds and roads of central Pennsylvania during the fall and spring months, taking much-needed breaks from the madness that was our pressure-filled lives. My rickety Chevette, purchased a few years earlier, was equipped with a factory-installed AM radio plus a cheap Radio Shack tape deck I finagled just beneath it; cassettes were the order of the day, in other words, which meant my typical fare at the time: Dwight Yoakam, Lone Justice, Long Ryders, Bangles, Suzanne Vega and, depending on my mood, Hank Jr. Al and I almost always set out to reach the top of Mount Nittany—why, I don’t know—though the only thing we ever seemed to find was a gas station when the fuel gage ticked too low. We talked and laughed a lot during those drives, and traded dreams about our futures.  

Bluegrass guitar flatpicker and singer-songwriter Rebecca Frazier’s new single, “High Country Road Trip,” captures the spirit of such outings, be they with family, friends or alone. One of my favorite things to do, all those years ago and even now, is to cast my eyes at those things that lie just beyond the roadside: houses, shopping plazas, farmland, and exits littered with signs advertising restaurants, tourist stops and gas stations. As a kid, I wondered what life was like for those who lived so far from the madding crowd. I still do.

Frazier, who’s likely best known for her work with the Colorado-based bluegrass band Hit & Run, started writing the song years ago and eventually finished it with an assist from singer-songwriter (and fellow former Colorado resident) Rorey Carroll. Frazier says of it, “This song is meant to capture that moment of joy somewhere in the middle: that elevated feeling of loving the lightness of not knowing what’s around the bend, and not necessarily trying to create a specific outcome.” She’s accompanied on the musical trip by former New Grass Revival bandmates Béla Fleck (on banjo) and Sam Bush (on mandolin), as well as Stuart Duncan on fiddle, Barry Bales on bass, Josh Swift on dobro, and Shelby Means and Adam Chaffins on harmony vocals. (The song’s album home, Boarding Windows in Paradise, is slated for release in September.)

So what’s my favorite time of year? How’s this: spring, summer and fall. Winter, too, now that I live in a mostly a snow-free zone. Memories are made year-round, after all.