Those 78s I mentioned that were lost “in a move” - my mom gave them to a neighbor kid and didn’t tell me. Scarred for life, I was.
Who in your family influenced your love of music?
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Bluedemon25
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My grandfather. I was always very fond of my grandparents so a visit to them was something to enjoy. I recall going around the age of it must been between 2 and 4, to their house. I was very young, and I would sit on the edge of their bed and ask him to put song I liked. That song in particular was Rhapsody in Blue (either full length or harmonica Glory of Gershwin Larry Adler, I think what he put on varied from time to time. I love both.). I tended to respond specifically to that and to a lesser extent the 1812 overture and wanted to hear them over and over and again (especially the cannons).
So I tribute my interest in music to my grandfather. It is a memory I hold dear.
Later exploration would have been when driving back from long road trips where my father may have picked me up from a camping thing I did with other people my age and he would put a CD in the car. His taste tended to be best of or mixes by decade. I hit upon a few that I really liked and explore that artist in particular in an era that was easier to do so growing up when I did. it allowed me to find some favorites and run with it so both are really responsible.
So I tribute my interest in music to my grandfather. It is a memory I hold dear.
Later exploration would have been when driving back from long road trips where my father may have picked me up from a camping thing I did with other people my age and he would put a CD in the car. His taste tended to be best of or mixes by decade. I hit upon a few that I really liked and explore that artist in particular in an era that was easier to do so growing up when I did. it allowed me to find some favorites and run with it so both are really responsible.
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Nobody in my family influenced, or encouraged, my love of music that I can remember. My father died when I was 10. I've since heard that he was a big jazz fan and saw lots of cool people like Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, etc, back in the 40's/50's but by the time I came around, he was gone a lot and there was no records in the house that would indicate that.
I basically got into music on my own. First to try to fit in as an awkward kid, then later as a way to rebel and to help define myself, and finally as essentially a way of life. From my late teens to present day late 60's, it's been an obsession much of the time. It's been a life line for me in so many ways. I"m happy to say I did marry somebody who shares that passion, and we have passed it on to our daughter who does as well.
I basically got into music on my own. First to try to fit in as an awkward kid, then later as a way to rebel and to help define myself, and finally as essentially a way of life. From my late teens to present day late 60's, it's been an obsession much of the time. It's been a life line for me in so many ways. I"m happy to say I did marry somebody who shares that passion, and we have passed it on to our daughter who does as well.
I don't think my parents had much influence on my musical tastes. They had a Zenith console in the living room with just a few albums. It was one of those with the "phantom third channel" (which, when you played that demo record, the phrase was always belted out with a big voice and lots of reverb.)
Oddly enough, looking back on those few records, Andy Williams, Dean Martin and Mitch Miller - to name a few I vaguely remember, they had some Enoch Light! This was at the time when stereo was just getting big so they were stereo versions. I actually liked one album so much that, when I got back to collecting audio in around 2019, I made sure to go out and find this record. Cheesey and yet I love it. And, because the stereo is SO pronounced on this record, it sounds really cool through a QS style decoder.
The next person to actually influence me was my Uncle's (he was only 6 years older than me) wife's brother. I was such a nerd and Richie was such a cool dude. Despite being something like 7 feet tall, he drove this tiny Opel sports car. He could barely get in it.
I think the year was 1973ish (me, about 14 years old) and at that time I only owned one record. The Monkees Headquarters. That was, of course , because I watched the TV show every week. Richie played Dark Side of the Moon for me. I was blown away! The ticking clocks on Time just enamored me. I HAD to buy it. Of course, Money was played on the radio at the time, so that helped my soon-to-be addiction. It was around this time I decided I wanted to be a DJ.
...and that's what I did. And, of course, once in radio, I had nearly free access to all kinds of records and music.
Oddly enough, looking back on those few records, Andy Williams, Dean Martin and Mitch Miller - to name a few I vaguely remember, they had some Enoch Light! This was at the time when stereo was just getting big so they were stereo versions. I actually liked one album so much that, when I got back to collecting audio in around 2019, I made sure to go out and find this record. Cheesey and yet I love it. And, because the stereo is SO pronounced on this record, it sounds really cool through a QS style decoder.
I think the year was 1973ish (me, about 14 years old) and at that time I only owned one record. The Monkees Headquarters. That was, of course , because I watched the TV show every week. Richie played Dark Side of the Moon for me. I was blown away! The ticking clocks on Time just enamored me. I HAD to buy it. Of course, Money was played on the radio at the time, so that helped my soon-to-be addiction. It was around this time I decided I wanted to be a DJ.
...and that's what I did. And, of course, once in radio, I had nearly free access to all kinds of records and music.
I suppose the biggest musical influence on me was my parents, though to this day (I'm about three months shy of 66) I'm not entirely sure whether I care more about the music itself or the particulars of its reproduction.
I loved my mother's circa 1954 Voice of Music changer and constantly played records on it, but I was at least as fascinated by the record player itself as I was by the music.
My mother had been a Columbia Record Club member in the 1950s, though I think that was probably one of the first things to get sacrificed after I infested her womb. Either that, or my father just nagged her into cancelling. But by that point she had dozens of LPs, pretty much entirely easy listening and classical, so for the first few years of my life, that's all I ever listened to. I don't remember having any other music specifically forbidden or withheld from me, but for the most part, if they turned on the radio it was either an easy listening station or KFBK 92.5 FM, which I specifically mention because I'm sure one or two others here have memories of it.
She also had a collection of 78s, some of which my pack rat-averse father forced her to give away along with at least three 45s that I can remember being around when I was tiny but haven't seen a trace of in close to 60 years. The 78s that survived have all been carefully digitized.
Family legend says that a teacher once asked me what my favorite song was and I said it was Handel's Water Music (specifically the Eduard van Beinum/Concertgebouw orchestra version on Epic, not that I would have gone into that level of detail at the time). The story goes that the teacher thought that was weird enough to mention to my parents. Whatever.
I can remember other kids in school making references to popular songs of the day, but I had no clue that's what they were doing. I specifically remember mentions of "the little old lady from Pasadena," what I now know was "The Name Game" and whatever the song was that included "Three six nine, the monkey drank wine" but to me that was just some random interesting (to a six year old!) thing kids were saying. In fact, I think I was north of 50 when I learned that "three six nine" was used in a song.
At some point I was given a little tabletop AM-only tube radio and explored a bit more on my own. I somewhat remember going through a country phase ("KRAK radio, eleven four-oh!") around the time "Little Arrows" and "Big Daddy's Alabammy Bound" were getting played. And probably "I've Been Everywhere, Man."
I never completely lost interest in classical music, though for a time I was pretty dismissive of easy listening. Certainly by the late sixties I had discovered AM rock radio and by the mid-seventies had become absolutely addicted to "underground" FM rock radio, specifically KZAP 98.5. I can remember a time when the Beatles were my favorite act, though at some point I became more obsessed with Elton John and then, after realizing that three songs I used to hear all the time on KZAP were from The Dark Side of the Moon, I took the bus to buy the album in the summer of 1974 and within a few years had become an incurable Pink Floyd fanatic. To the extent that I still have anyone that might be called My Favorite, it's still them.
But along with the music, I was also obsessed with sound quality and preferred reels to records, FM to AM, etc. I thought (and still think) that CDs were the greatest advance in home music reproduction ever. In fact, when people first started murmuring about putting their CDs on hard disk, I thought it was the stupidest idea I'd ever heard. I mean, CDs were already perfect the way they were, and hard drives were small and expensive, so why the hell would I want to use a computer to play back music?
Skip ahead 20 or so years and I started dipping my toe into the world of playback from hard drive, eventually acquiring several Logitech Squeezeboxes, when then developed into an all-consuming obsession with getting my entire CD library online. I was still years away from retirement, working full time and had a library of well over 1,000 discs, but once I started I couldn't stop until I'd finished. Took me about 18 months overall, so you'd better believe I have an extremely robust backup routine!
I still enjoy just about every type of music that I ever enjoyed (well, maybe not kiddie records so much), but I'm also at the very least equally obsessed with the playback technology. And also obsessed with the fact that tags in FLAC files can be used to store an enormous amount of information about the recordings. In fact, now that LMS includes the ability to read WORK tags, I'm going back and adding them all my classical files.
When my mother died I took the only stuff of hers that I ever wanted: The record collection. I've digitized some of my childhood favorites, even going so far as to find replacement copies when the originals were too damaged by either her casual treatment or, far my likely, my stupid little child fingers.
As far as I can tell, to this day my father only voluntarily listens to classical music, though he was never much of a collector. In fact, about a year ago he gave me his entire CD library, which was only about 25 or so albums. Of course, I immediately sucked all the bits into the computer!
So I guess my mother started my obsession with music + technology, both parents got me interested in classical and AM and FM radio exposed me to a ton of things I'd never previously been aware of.
I loved my mother's circa 1954 Voice of Music changer and constantly played records on it, but I was at least as fascinated by the record player itself as I was by the music.
My mother had been a Columbia Record Club member in the 1950s, though I think that was probably one of the first things to get sacrificed after I infested her womb. Either that, or my father just nagged her into cancelling. But by that point she had dozens of LPs, pretty much entirely easy listening and classical, so for the first few years of my life, that's all I ever listened to. I don't remember having any other music specifically forbidden or withheld from me, but for the most part, if they turned on the radio it was either an easy listening station or KFBK 92.5 FM, which I specifically mention because I'm sure one or two others here have memories of it.
She also had a collection of 78s, some of which my pack rat-averse father forced her to give away along with at least three 45s that I can remember being around when I was tiny but haven't seen a trace of in close to 60 years. The 78s that survived have all been carefully digitized.
Family legend says that a teacher once asked me what my favorite song was and I said it was Handel's Water Music (specifically the Eduard van Beinum/Concertgebouw orchestra version on Epic, not that I would have gone into that level of detail at the time). The story goes that the teacher thought that was weird enough to mention to my parents. Whatever.
I can remember other kids in school making references to popular songs of the day, but I had no clue that's what they were doing. I specifically remember mentions of "the little old lady from Pasadena," what I now know was "The Name Game" and whatever the song was that included "Three six nine, the monkey drank wine" but to me that was just some random interesting (to a six year old!) thing kids were saying. In fact, I think I was north of 50 when I learned that "three six nine" was used in a song.
At some point I was given a little tabletop AM-only tube radio and explored a bit more on my own. I somewhat remember going through a country phase ("KRAK radio, eleven four-oh!") around the time "Little Arrows" and "Big Daddy's Alabammy Bound" were getting played. And probably "I've Been Everywhere, Man."
I never completely lost interest in classical music, though for a time I was pretty dismissive of easy listening. Certainly by the late sixties I had discovered AM rock radio and by the mid-seventies had become absolutely addicted to "underground" FM rock radio, specifically KZAP 98.5. I can remember a time when the Beatles were my favorite act, though at some point I became more obsessed with Elton John and then, after realizing that three songs I used to hear all the time on KZAP were from The Dark Side of the Moon, I took the bus to buy the album in the summer of 1974 and within a few years had become an incurable Pink Floyd fanatic. To the extent that I still have anyone that might be called My Favorite, it's still them.
But along with the music, I was also obsessed with sound quality and preferred reels to records, FM to AM, etc. I thought (and still think) that CDs were the greatest advance in home music reproduction ever. In fact, when people first started murmuring about putting their CDs on hard disk, I thought it was the stupidest idea I'd ever heard. I mean, CDs were already perfect the way they were, and hard drives were small and expensive, so why the hell would I want to use a computer to play back music?
Skip ahead 20 or so years and I started dipping my toe into the world of playback from hard drive, eventually acquiring several Logitech Squeezeboxes, when then developed into an all-consuming obsession with getting my entire CD library online. I was still years away from retirement, working full time and had a library of well over 1,000 discs, but once I started I couldn't stop until I'd finished. Took me about 18 months overall, so you'd better believe I have an extremely robust backup routine!
I still enjoy just about every type of music that I ever enjoyed (well, maybe not kiddie records so much), but I'm also at the very least equally obsessed with the playback technology. And also obsessed with the fact that tags in FLAC files can be used to store an enormous amount of information about the recordings. In fact, now that LMS includes the ability to read WORK tags, I'm going back and adding them all my classical files.
When my mother died I took the only stuff of hers that I ever wanted: The record collection. I've digitized some of my childhood favorites, even going so far as to find replacement copies when the originals were too damaged by either her casual treatment or, far my likely, my stupid little child fingers.
As far as I can tell, to this day my father only voluntarily listens to classical music, though he was never much of a collector. In fact, about a year ago he gave me his entire CD library, which was only about 25 or so albums. Of course, I immediately sucked all the bits into the computer!
So I guess my mother started my obsession with music + technology, both parents got me interested in classical and AM and FM radio exposed me to a ton of things I'd never previously been aware of.
M-K
400 Club - QQ All-Star
My uncle.
The played to me (what I can remember today):
-Pink Floyd (Relics, Animals)
-Meat Loaf - Bat out of Hell
-Manfred Mann's Earth Band
-Chicago
-Genesis (Seconds Out, And Then There Were Three)
-The Who - Quadrophenia
-Nektar (Remember The Future I think it was)
-Omega (Gammapolis)
-German "Krautrock" like: Eloy, Kraftwerk, Ashra, Michael Rother, probably Tangerine Dream
-The Beatles have always been around me
So this is where my musical DNA comes from !
All of those records I still like today.
The played to me (what I can remember today):
-Pink Floyd (Relics, Animals)
-Meat Loaf - Bat out of Hell
-Manfred Mann's Earth Band
-Chicago
-Genesis (Seconds Out, And Then There Were Three)
-The Who - Quadrophenia
-Nektar (Remember The Future I think it was)
-Omega (Gammapolis)
-German "Krautrock" like: Eloy, Kraftwerk, Ashra, Michael Rother, probably Tangerine Dream
-The Beatles have always been around me
So this is where my musical DNA comes from !
All of those records I still like today.
If I had relied on my parents i’d be a music hater rather than lover, they were born in 1920 and 1921, they hated modern music with a passion, it was all Bing Crosby, Sammy Davis jr etc, I suppose my older brother and sister helped but I like to think I formed my own likes and dislikes, the first song that ever made me cry was Nilsson’s Without you, no idea why I cried as I was 10 at the time, the arrangement was very emotional even though I never understood the words until later in life. I bought my first record at 12 when I got a record player for christmas and i’ve been obsessed with music since then, now at 65 most of my money goes on music related stuff, I don’t have many other hobbies that cost money so it’s an easy choice
What a great thread! Thank you @GOS for starting it.
My introductions to music came from my parents primarily, but also one of my grandmothers and of course my two older brothers. Chronologically, my grandmother (born in 1900) raised a family in the 20s and 30s, and radio was extremely important to her and her husband. In her later years she had a portable LP player, and we happily bought her vintage comedy albums (Fibber McGee and Molly, for example - plus I could recite Abott and Costello’s “Who’s on First” before I ever saw one of their movies). From contemporary radio in the 60s and 70s she learned to love modern artists. Her favorites included Neil Diamond and Glen Campbell, but also Bobby Gentry. Plus Montovani.
My parents were married during their college years, with my mom joining my EE dad at Purdue in the early 50s. They had taken a music appreciation class together there, and so growing up I was exposed to their favorite classical albums that they learned in school and their appreciation for classics (they faithfully attended the local symphony). Also, they visited my uncle who, after serving in the Pacific, got a PhD in physics and went to work at Brookhaven National Laboratory; I believe those visits included a couple of Broadway shows. My mom always played those cast albums, and I particularly recall My Fair Lady and The Sound of Music. It was a great pleasure to take her to see Julie Andrews in 1995 in Chicago as the female lead in the traveling Victor Victoria. My parents also played a lot of Harry Belafonte, and had a copy of Hair, which has always been one of my favorites. My father got involved in the 70s with designing bookshelf hifi speakers and was obsessed with bass response, so I also remember the appropriate classics (Also Sprach Zarathustra, Saint-Seans Organ Symphony) plus he also loved ELP’s Pictures at an Exhibition.
I was the youngest son, with a pair of brothers 4 and 6 years older. My oldest brother used to play Beatles albums all of the time, but I also remember being exposed to The Who (“Tommy” and “Live at Leeds”) and Chicago (Chicago II). All three of us were lucky to be in a school district that had music classes for everyone starting in 4th grade (we all learned to play recorder), all three of us took piano lessons, and we all three played in band (and me also orchestra) in school - me French horn, my middle brother trombone, and my oldest brother trumpet. My middle brother became a really good piano player, and while in high school he played in a rock band that occasionally practiced in our basement (he played keyboards). They did an amazing version of “All Right Now,” so I’ve been a Free and Paul Rodgers fan ever since.
I only started listening to multichannel a couple of years ago (just concert DVDs in 5.1 before that). It’s amazing how strong old music memories can be - the first time I played the Chicago II Quadio I could anticipate every note, even though I hadn’t heard that album for maybe 45 years (other than 25 or 6 to 4, of course).
My introductions to music came from my parents primarily, but also one of my grandmothers and of course my two older brothers. Chronologically, my grandmother (born in 1900) raised a family in the 20s and 30s, and radio was extremely important to her and her husband. In her later years she had a portable LP player, and we happily bought her vintage comedy albums (Fibber McGee and Molly, for example - plus I could recite Abott and Costello’s “Who’s on First” before I ever saw one of their movies). From contemporary radio in the 60s and 70s she learned to love modern artists. Her favorites included Neil Diamond and Glen Campbell, but also Bobby Gentry. Plus Montovani.
My parents were married during their college years, with my mom joining my EE dad at Purdue in the early 50s. They had taken a music appreciation class together there, and so growing up I was exposed to their favorite classical albums that they learned in school and their appreciation for classics (they faithfully attended the local symphony). Also, they visited my uncle who, after serving in the Pacific, got a PhD in physics and went to work at Brookhaven National Laboratory; I believe those visits included a couple of Broadway shows. My mom always played those cast albums, and I particularly recall My Fair Lady and The Sound of Music. It was a great pleasure to take her to see Julie Andrews in 1995 in Chicago as the female lead in the traveling Victor Victoria. My parents also played a lot of Harry Belafonte, and had a copy of Hair, which has always been one of my favorites. My father got involved in the 70s with designing bookshelf hifi speakers and was obsessed with bass response, so I also remember the appropriate classics (Also Sprach Zarathustra, Saint-Seans Organ Symphony) plus he also loved ELP’s Pictures at an Exhibition.
I was the youngest son, with a pair of brothers 4 and 6 years older. My oldest brother used to play Beatles albums all of the time, but I also remember being exposed to The Who (“Tommy” and “Live at Leeds”) and Chicago (Chicago II). All three of us were lucky to be in a school district that had music classes for everyone starting in 4th grade (we all learned to play recorder), all three of us took piano lessons, and we all three played in band (and me also orchestra) in school - me French horn, my middle brother trombone, and my oldest brother trumpet. My middle brother became a really good piano player, and while in high school he played in a rock band that occasionally practiced in our basement (he played keyboards). They did an amazing version of “All Right Now,” so I’ve been a Free and Paul Rodgers fan ever since.
I only started listening to multichannel a couple of years ago (just concert DVDs in 5.1 before that). It’s amazing how strong old music memories can be - the first time I played the Chicago II Quadio I could anticipate every note, even though I hadn’t heard that album for maybe 45 years (other than 25 or 6 to 4, of course).
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MidiMagic
2K Club - QQ Super Nova
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Horrors???? If you keep the records and the air clean and have equipment that handles the records correctly, stacking does not harm them.
I have seen record changers that I would not want any of my records played on. And I don't stack World War II era records made of substandard materials.
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