Learning of Bobby Hebb’s passing last Tuesday – a name that was unfamiliar to me until that instant, but a voice permanently etched on my brain – I was carried back 20 some years to my childhood.
As I listened to the sweet simple lyrics of “Sunny,” once again – now so many years later – my mind drifted back to time spent with my dad as a kid. My dad never gave me the option to listen to “my music” – you know, New Kids on the Block. He said when I got my own car I could listen to whatever I wanted.
He opened my world to the greatest classic songs from the 50s, 60s and 70s. It was the 80s, I knew all the words to Buddy Holly, the Temptations and Diana Ross songs, but my seven-year-old ears were virgin to the lyrics of the hair bands that the teenage girls were swooning over.
What I though was torture back then, long car rides or days spent helping him at work, became a great lesson in musicology and unforgettable father-daughter moments. For me, “Sunny” paints a picture of blissful childhood – for others, I’m sure that picture is something else, but definitely something profound.
I learned to appreciate something that doesn’t exist in today’s digital, over-produced and excessively-marketed world – which I also embrace – I learned to know and appreciate great artists like Bobbie Hebb, who wrote beautiful, simple, poetic melodies, that spoke to lovers, soldiers, preachers, teachers, fathers, and daughters.
Bobbie Hebb’s most popular song “Sunny” is one of the most covered songs of all time and led to him touring with the Beatles, and it’s no wonder. It was birthed in 1966, during very trying and distinct times of our country’s history.
It’s said that Hebb wrote the song after learning of John F. Kennedy’s death, followed by news he received that his brother had been stabbed and killed. He wrote this song as a positive outlet for the deep hurt and confusion that he must have been digesting that day. He just wanted to make a song that would take him and others to a happier place.
Almost fifty years after writing the song, “Sunny” still bringing smiles to faces and comfort to the hearts of so many. Fans new and old will forever appreciate what Bobby Hebb left us as he left this earth last Tuesday.
08/09/2010 20:36:29 ♥ nicole (
) ♥ bobbyhebb.com ♥ myspace.com/sunnybobbyhebb
