Six Records for a Long Summer Evening
August 2, 2026
There is no television in our living room. The room is arranged around music instead.
A restored 1960s record-player console sits near John’s grandmother’s hope chest, which now holds part of our record collection. My ukuleles and John’s accordion are nearby. The living room opens into the kitchen and dining space beneath a vaulted ceiling, with windows and skylights filling it with daylight. By evening, a record can move through all of it: cooking, conversation, friends gathering, or John reaching out his hand when it is time to dance.
What I would put on tonight
- Eddie Roberts & The Lucky Strokes: lively, loose, and made for an evening that may turn into dancing.
- B.W. Stevenson, My Maria: warm Texas songwriting and a voice I return to often.
- Willie Nelson, Shotgun Willie: inventive, unmistakable, and full of the freedom that makes a record feel alive.
- The Allman Brothers Band, At Fillmore East: a live album that rewards giving it the room and time it deserves.
- Grateful Dead, Workingman’s Dead: harmony, storytelling, and songs that feel at home in an ordinary room.
- Johnny Blue Skies, Passage du Desir: Sturgill Simpson’s spacious, thoughtful record for the later part of the evening.
These are not background decorations or records chosen to prove a certain kind of taste. Music is part of how John and I live together. It plays while we cook, talk, listen closely, welcome friends, and practice our dancing. Sometimes it is quiet. Sometimes it takes over the whole room.
John is more likely to start the dance. When he holds out his hand, I never say no.
Music adds life and color to an ordinary life. A long summer evening does not need a complicated plan. Sometimes it only needs one good record played all the way through.
With love and intention,
Jennifer
