I’m grooving to Van Morrison’s “Down to Joy” as I write this first sentence—for some reason, it’s part of my “personalized” New Music Mix in Apple Music despite being released a few months ago. It and the songs that follow are good indicators of my sprawling tastes, which span from country to folk to pop to rock to R&B/soul to jazz to avant-garde, with many hybrids and sub-genres therein. My recent Best of the Best, Mid-Year Edition post, where I list my favorite albums and EPs of the first half of 2025, again confirms my diverse interests. I enjoy almost everything.
Much of the variety stems, I think, from my initial forays into popular music. I’ve chronicled that journey before, most notably here, but the most important thing to know: I cut my teeth, made my bones, paid my dues, and earned my stripes by way of the oldies, which in the late 1970s consisted of the pop music of the ‘50s and early ’60s, and the era’s Top 40 radio. As a result, I was exposed to—and enjoyed—pretty much all styles of music. The only criteria for either format was popularity; if a song made the mainstream singles chart, no matter the genre, it was played.
Similar to my suburban contemporaries, however, I eventually tuned away from the Top 40 in favor of mainstream rock radio. As I noted in my review of Lucy Rose’s sublime 2019 album, No Words Left, such stations “pushed the illusion that their scope was limitless by programming album tracks and yesteryear favorites, ‘double shots’ and blocks of songs from a single act, while actually reining in diversity of genre, color and gender.” MTV, the topic du jour for the entirety of my senior year of high school, similarly expanded and constricted the boundaries of pop and rock music.
In my teens, while I enjoyed an array of genres, it’s safe to say that past and present rock music was the driving force in my life. By my mid-20s, my tastes had grown to include country, country-rock, folk, and folk-rock, with a smattering of soul/R&B mixed in, too; in my 30s, what we now call “Americana” became my primary jam, with jazz following a decade later. These days, as I stare down 60, I primarily listen to country-inflected, folk-flavored and soul-oriented singer-songwriters and bands, from JM Stevens to Kassi Valazza to Bella White to Kelsey Waldon to Southern Avenue, while spicing some days with charismatic indie artists (Calista Garcia), ambient jazz (Christian Winther), and such lifelong favorites as Neil Young, Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, and Paul Weller. Take from that what you will.
The Old Grey Cat 
I take it as fully appreciating the entire musical spectrum, or sampling everything at the buffet. And there ain’t nothing wrong with that. 🎵🎶
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