My Dad had a TV business and sold Hi-Fi systems in the 1950s. I bought--at cost--a "portable" Zenith stereo record player, compact unit with two 5.25" speakers facing forward. My first record, although I do not remember the name of the album, was a Tommy Dorsey/Fank Sinatra album, and my second was a recording by the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra, with George Szell conducting Beethoven's Fifth Symphony in C Minor. I was hooked!
The first? Davey Crocket theme song from the Disney series with Fess Parker. Then Mad Magazine’s Twist Rock and Roll LP. But my first real album was “Having a Rave Up with the Yardbirds”, which introduced me to both Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck. Heart Full of Soul was why I bought it at Model’s in Rochelle Park, NJ., but it also had The Train Kept A-Rollin’, I’m A Man, Evil Hearted You, and Smokestack Lightning.
1967, I was 12 years old. I saw the Beatles play Hello Goodbye on the Ed Sullivan Show. I went the next day and purchased the 45. When I got home, I played it and then flipped it over. I Am The Walrus was on the B side. That is exactly when I decided to save my money and buy a guitar. From that point on, listening to music and playing guitar has and always will be a passion of mine.
The Troggs, "Wild Thing" from the Base Exchange at the (then) Lowry Air Force Base in Denver during the annual school clothes buying trip. My mother was aghast. I still have it, but not the clothes
My mom waited tables at a local barbecue joint when I was a kid. The fellow who serviced the juke box would often give her some 45s when they were changed out to bring home to me for what passed as our record player. Lots of Merle Haggard, George Jones, etc., but for some reason, I remember getting Brook Benton, rainy night in Georgia in the deal, and I still love that song
first LP I remember buying myself was the eponymous John Prine in 1971
The first albums I bought with my own money were The Eagles, Hotel California, & The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (reissue, obviously, lol). 1976. I was 11.
The first was a 45. It was Elvis Presley’s "Hound Dog/Don’t Be Cruel". My first LP was "Rubber Soul" (Beatles, of course). I thought every song could be #1. What a record!
I had that Goldfinger soundtrack too - still brilliant music and title song. But my first rock album I bought was Rolling Stones 'Aftermath', because I liked 'Paint It Black' so much....
"Rock The Boat" Hues Corporation. Earned my $1 by washing my grandfather's dark green Plymouth Duster then off to S. S. Kresege. 49 years later my grandparents would have been arrested having a barefoot 9 year old being paid to wash a car in the street(lol).
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