Smiley: The highlight of my summer is the music I see on the road

I love music. All kinds of music. Although, Quincy Jones once told me that there are really only two kinds of music — good and bad.

There are plenty of reasons I look forward to summer, but what brings me the greatest joy is mapping out my annual summer concert tour schedule. I research who's going to be on tour, and I take a road trip to enjoy my favorite artists in concert. (My road trips tend to be by airplane, but being a "roadie" sounds so much cooler!)

Over the years, I've been a roadie with everyone from Stevie Wonder to Diana Krall, The O'Jays to Yo-Yo Ma, Wynton Marsalis to Bob Dylan, Jill Scott to Chris Botti, Kathleen Battle to Dave Koz. Each summer, I try to choose at least one legend whom I've never seen perform live. I already have too many regrets about not seeing certain artists before it was too late.  

Throughout my broadcast career, people have told me that I seem genuinely thrilled when I'm in conversation with music artists. I'll cop to that, even though I delight in listening and learning from all of my guests. But, it is true that music matters to me in a deeply personal and visceral way. I can't imagine my life without its soundtrack.

Taking in a great summer show, oftentimes outside under the stars, fills me with such gratitude and joy. It makes me feel alive to watch the great ones perform, and to hear lyrics that celebrate life, spread love and offer hope for a better tomorrow.

On occasion, I have been rendered speechless (not so easy) and brought to tears (easier than you think), by an unexpected shout-out from an artist during a live performance.

I don't have a language to describe what it feels like when Aretha Franklin serenades you with "Happy Birthday" on your 40th natal day. Or what it feels like to have Etta James dedicate "Sugar on the Floor" to you from the stage. Or to have Prince drop your name into the lyrics of his song "Kiss" on stage at Madison Square Garden. There is nothing more humbling. I mean nothing.

This summer, I've already seen Tony Bennett, who honored me by calling to ask if I would "consider" bringing him on when he returned to the stage of the Hollywood Bowl, 55 years to the day after he first appeared. Excuse me? Accompanied by his trio and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel … would I "consider" it? Ha! He couldn't keep me away.

It's a night I'll never forget. The Great American Songbook has never had a better friend than the incomparable Bennett, now 91 and still killing it!

I've also spent time this summer hanging out with my fellow Indiana Hoosier, John Mellencamp. Talk about songs with great lyrics about everyday people struggling to make it — Mellencamp is the man.

Bonnie Raitt has a heart full of grace and a soul generated by love. She's as real as rain. But that voice! And those guitar licks! I nearly passed out when she sang one of my favorite songs, "Nick of Time,"  and dedicated it to me. I wanted to just run down the aisle, jump up on stage, and give her a big hug and a fat kiss when I saw her last week! Which I eventually did backstage, after my friends gave me CPR. Oh my!

The summer ain't over, thank goodness, and I've got a few more artists to see: Kendrick Lamar, George Benson and Trombone Shorty. But seeing James Taylor last week, for the umpteenth time, made my summer ritual complete. I never miss him. Never. The humanity in his lyricism is unmatched. Whenever my friend Jamie Lee Curtis appears on the program, like two kids in the schoolyard, we pick up our fight about who loves JT most. Women love him, guys want to hang out with him.

I don't know how you intend to spend the rest of your summer. I can only tell you that I have never regretted spending a summer night listening to good music. Singing, swaying, smiling, sweating.

The older I get, the more I realize that life is more about memories than milestones.

So, when the summer rolls around, I try to spend some time in stillness, listening to music that moves me, by artists who inspire me.  

The novelist and poet Edward Bulwer-Lytton was right, "Music, once admitted to the soul, becomes a sort of spirit, and never dies."