May Day May Day

My Mom & Dad got tired of listening to me whine about wanting to play rock & roll on their stereo ( a nice looking walnut veneered Zenith console.) Mom was a music snob who used her love of classical music as way to put down anyone who enjoyed "lesser" forms of music and she sure didn't want to listen to what her teenage son did. So Dad took me to some old guys house who was selling his small Zenith unit with hinged speakers and we got that along with some free Hank Williams records. I promptly recovered the speakers' grills with a suitably psychedelic paisley cloth and went out and bought the Grateful Deads', Doors, and Mothers of Inventions first albums at Kmart. I think they were about $3.50 each.

In my household, all we had were 78 rpm players for the first few years--a walnut-finish wood tabletop model in the basement (about 2'x3'x3') where we played Disneyland records and Davey Crockett and some old acoustic count-tree square dance record. Upstairs was a 78 tube floor-standing console made (I think) of mahogany, where it took a stack of 78s to play one symphony.

When I was about 6 or so my dad got our first 33-1/3 RPM player--a portable RCA with built-in speaker. He'd set it on the kitchen counter and we'd listen to Beethoven or Tchaikovsky during dinner. When I was about 8 we got a floorstanding stereo console as the family Christmas present that played all 4 speeds from 16-2/3 to 78 rpm. This was back when you weren't supposed to play stereo records on mono equipment.

I remember one of the first stereo LPs we played on it was the Chipmunks Christmas, vol. 2. Fast forward a few years and at the end of 6th grade one of my sisters gave me a Gene Krupa compilation, "Drummer Man" LP on MGM records. Although I didn't buy it with my own money, it was the very first record I owned. The next one was given to me by another sister, "Time Further Out" by the Dave Brubeck quartet.

Finally, for my 15th birthday I got $5 from my Grandma. To that I added about $1.50 and bought two new LPs at $3.19 each--Creedence Clearwater Revival (self-titled, with the extended version of Susie Q and I Put a Spell on You) and Blood, Sweat, and Tears 2, the one with Spinning Wheel and You Make Me So Very Happy.

That Spring my older brother bought the first componenet stereo I ever saw, and the beginning of my 38-year (and counting) audio obsession. It was an Electrophonic POS with whizzer cone speakers and a built-in 8-track. Soon after he bought a mid-level Garrard turntable and battery-operated Cal-Rad mag phono preamp.

These stories are great. Lots of wide smiles and chuckles on this side of the keyboard.

Schipo Zenith console and hinged unit What a family-I stiil listen to those records and I just went to see Kim Simmonds !

Forrestc I guess that got the hairs on your neck to stand up ! Hey Dad Dinners Ready!

Jameswei I had the same combo unit I bought it in a TV Repair Shop. I went home with Freddie and the Dreamers that day.

Uktel those Thorens are still worth their weight in Vinyl.

Desmondjim Learn to read by the 45rpm method what a school of music. Did you ever get a Jukebox? My Friends Mom was a Playboy Bunnie and she had a box in her foyer.

Photon I thought Hank Williams was Classical Music Just like Frank Zappa

Johnny B Good Davey Crocket King of the Wild Frontier aint that Ant Music ?
I bet your dad did opera in the shower. What a way to enjoy a meal

Thanks Everyone

Keep them hits coming

Groovey Records

My first record player was a record changer by Emerson. You opened up the top and it became useable. The speaker was the front. Mono only.
First record ever was either Thunder Road or Quiet Village don't remember which.
First LP came from my sister it was a set of things like Peer Gynt for kids etc. The stories were good and so was the music.
Later inherited a Stromberg-Carlson tuner with multiplex and a turntable and hugh speakers. After that got into components and it has been my mania ever since.

My first very own, not a hand-me-down, record player was a Christmas present at about age 15. It was a GE portable stereo that had two, biggish grey plastic speaker cabinets that snapped onto either side of the silver painted metal turntable/amplifier deck. At about 2 o'clock on the volume knob the system would begin to distort so I pencil marked the max point for quick set up. I wishfully hoped that limitation would one day magically vanish but it never did. Maybe it was a pretty good primer for coping with the componentry to follow - recognizing limitations and addressing distortions.

Groovey, let's not forget the fateful consequences of popping the balloons at the Woolworth counter that determined the price of those banana splits. Saving 25 cents could change your prospects entirely!