California Dreamin

The song “California Dreamin’” by the Mamas and Papas instantly transforms me into a pre-teen again. A group of eight teenagers would hang out at my friend Judi’s house because her parents were never home. Naturally once our parents found out the truth we always got into trouble, but oh what a time we had at Judi’s learning about sex, drugs and rock and roll.  California Dreamin’ was our anthem and we’d play the 45’s record endlessly on the phonograph.  (Yes, I’m dating myself) But we were so infatuated with the harmonies of the song, we’d call people randomly in the phone book.  We’d tell them we were a new band and all of us would stand in Judi’s kitchen and sing with the record into the telephone. Then, we’d let the callers evaluate us.  In retrospect what’s amazing to me is the fact that hardly anyone ever hung up on us.  Everyone we called seemed incredibly nice and just couldn’t wait to hear our new record.  Many of them even asked how they could buy our record when it came out and all we could do was giggle in the background. The majority of the people would listen to us singing “California Dreamin’” at the top of our lungs and usually they said we either sounded good or had potential. Some of the people had in-depth comments. Perhaps we did sound good because God knows we practiced enough. The people we called had no idea how much hope they gave us kids by their compliments. It was all in good fun, but it’s a nice thought to realize how confident we were about our talent after receiving good reviews from strangers-- something lacking in today’s world. This, no doubt, was the genesis for the first American Idol.