Growing up, if my mom wasn’t listening to the Red Sox baseball game on the radio, she had it tuned to the local Country Music station. So naturally, as soon as I had a radio of my own, I vowed to never listen to country music again. It was second on my list of hated music genres, right behind opera. Sure enough, as I hit adulthood, I discovered that it wasn’t that bad after all.
It never made it into a “What’s kind of music do you listen to” conversation, but occasionally after a few months of a steady rock and roll diet, a week of country was a nice palette cleanser. And even sometimes when I got bored with the videos on MTV, I would watch CMT for a bit1. Which is where I discovered this voice.