The word fidelity derives from the Latin word fideles, meaning faithful, true, loyal, trusty, sincere. The American music industry used fidelity in the mid-20th Century to imply the faithful reproduction of sound. As the industry sold it, Hi-Fi is next to godliness, although music lovers no doubt put it the other way around, that godliness, if lucky, is next to High Fidelity.
Nothing is more noble than fidelity, said Cicero, and few things have proved more true, faithful and yes, noble, than our family’s 1958 Fisher Electra II Console Hi-Fi. Its massive speakers would squawk in protest if anyone called it an appliance or a machine. It was a member of the family who sang to us in the languages of George Gershwin, Django Reinhardt, Stan Kenton, Irving Berlin, Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, Al Hirt, Meredith Wilson, Trini Lopez, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Ricky Nelson, the Coasters, Nat King Cole, the Drifters, and on and on.
Time means nothing to it. It picks up new languages as soon as they appear on the scene. It sang the Beatles as eloquently as it did Ella Fitzgerald. It’s fluency filled the home with Kyu Sakamoto’s 1963 song, “Sukiyaki.” Our family’s seven—Mom, Dad, five kids—laughed with our Hi-Fi, cried with it, sat speechless before it, danced to it, learned rhythms from it, went to sleep to it.
Here’s a photo of my sister Patty teaching Dad the Twist as Chubby Checker’s song played with the help of the Garrard turntable’s 45 rpm record adapter. Those are my brother’s model cars, my mother’s bowling trophy and the reflection of the Polaroid flash in the glass of a picture frame in the background.
One February night in 1964 I put the brand new “Meet the Beatles” album on the Hi-Fi, turned up the volume, sat right in front of the speaker box and let the waves of sound carry me away. I couldn’t hear the phone when it rang in the kitchen, but I heard a cry escape my mother’s lips. It was the hospital in Burnet, Texas, calling to tell her that her father—we called him Baba—had died. My brother Mack sensibly told me to turn off the Hi-Fi, but Mom said no, keep the music playing.
Mom sat on the couch, smoked her cigarettes, promised that if Jackie Kennedy could keep from publicly crying at the death of her husband John that she could do so now at the death of her father, and listened with the rest of us to “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and “Hold Me Tight.”
I get a feeling now and again that an event or circumstance of my past is somehow still happening. I wish I could summon the feeling, but it comes unbidden. It’s not deja vu because I don’t wonder if I’ve been here before. I’m here now, and the scene plays on. Patty is still teaching Dad the Twist, it’s Marianne’s evening of the day but Jude takes a sad song, makes it better and it’s Brigadoon on the Hi-Fi and we’re Tommy returning forever to our Fiona.
Tonight, the Hi-Fi is in my garage awaiting delivery to restoration, to the guy who will replace the tubes and fix whatever else needs fixin’, which may not be much because just this moment as I type in my office next to the garage I hear music and the telltale crackling and popping of a phonograph needle on vinyl. I open the door at the end of the hall and from the dark within comes a song, a song I realize with a smile is a thank-you to all of us. It’s Ella Fitzgerald’s cover of “Time After Time.” It’s the highest of high fidelity.
Time after time, you'll hear me say
That I'm so lucky to be loving you
Time after time, I tell myself
That I'm so lucky to be loving you
So lucky to be the one you run to see
In the evening when the day is through
And I only know what I know
The passing years will show
You've kept my love so young, so new
And time after time, you'll hear me say
That I'm so lucky to be loving you
I only know what I know
The passing years will show
You've kept my love so young, so new
And time after time, you'll hear me say
That I'm so lucky to be loving you
Time after time you'll hear me say
That I'm so lucky to be loving you
Just you, just you