Here's To Dear Old Dad

You Bet!! When I was 14 (1963) My folks built a new home. It had a 28X60 basement that My dad and I spent the first Winter turning into what can only be described as a Night Club. He called it JUNGLE AL'S. it had a Pool table, Ping Pong a FULL BAR and most importantly a JUKE BOX. This thing had some kind of monster amp. (Tube) and 2-15" speakers, It COOKED!! It was stocked with everything from Classical to Nat King Cole to the Beatles. To my ears at that age it was an incredable sound like nothing I had ever heard before. Tons of bass and vocals that sounded like they were live. Needless to say my high school years were spent in that basement listening and dreaming of someday having a killer system of my own. These days My Dad is in his late seventies. He still enjoys music and is always blown away at how technology has changed the way we now reproduce music. That Juke Box cost him $275.00 (used). It cost me upwards of 50 grand and counting as of this writing, and I don't regret a dime of it. I love the gear, I love the music, and I LOVE YOU POP. THANKS T.

A big thanks to my dad for having grown up in Motown. And for getting his life-long dream fulfilled in receiving a Rogers drum set for his 35th birthday. That's when I taught myself how to play the drums, listening to Stevie Wonder and the Temptations and mimicking the drummer on the record. I later played drums professionally for over a decade. Thank you, Dad. I'm still playing the same set today, almost thirty years later.

Never talked with my father about thhis hobby, im sure he would consider it a waste of time.

All the love in the world for my pop though.
An excellent man, and i hope i can be even half the man he was.

My dad is 84 and still makes mix tapes for the residents at the care facility that houses my mother. He visits her every day and always starts the music playing. Although an attack of viral encephalitis has left her unable to speak, she still moves to the beat.

When I was 9, he brought home a component stereo for the family on Christmas Eve. Within the hour, a dance party had broken out in our living room with Ella, Frank, Tommy and Jimmy in amazing stereo! The whole neighborhood partied until the wee hours.

For 11 years, he was co-owner of several bootleg supper clubs on the blues and jazz circuit. Many nights my sleep was disturbed to come to a club and hear amazing music. I’ve sat beside Count Basie on the piano bench as my dad kept his glass filled. I’ve watched my mother twist with Chubby Checkers. I’ve seen my dad jitterbug on a table top as Louis Jordan blew down the house. I watched wild eyed from beside the band stand as Ray Charles rocked back and forth singing “Born to Loose” and “You Don’t Know Me”.

During the day, my dad managed a laundry. He always kept a key to the back door of the GC Murphy across the alley from the laundry so he could easily enter the record department when the new stock was delivered on Thursdays. We had every new single that came to town!

When I was 11, he brought home a used piano and I embarked on an eighteen year journey that allowed me to play with some of the best musicians of my time.

Thanks Dad!

I remember the early years when my father used to play music on his Grundig Radiogram. The equipment fascinated me. Looking at the black shiny disks spinning fast and with a needle on top of it producing all the sounds always intrigued me. I had no idea why the system sounded so good; today when I look back I can understand why! It was a one-piece system; everything was almost perfectly matched and had the tubes! I had no way of comparing the equipment, but whatever was being reproduced had sounded very good.

In 1968 when I was 10 years old he bought a very nice little record player, Philips it was, with a diamond stylus and two speakers which would fold and become the top cover when not in use. For first few years he bought all the records for me and whenever there was an occasion he would give me an LP as a present. He got posted abroad and used to send LP's every month in the parcel. Whatever appreciation I have today of music is only because of him.

He passed away on August 30, 1999, 13 days short of his 65th birthday. I miss him greatly and so does my 14 year old son, who seem to have lost his best friend.

Love you Papa!