In my case it wasn't live music that stimulated my interest, it was recorded music right from the get go. My father, who was born in 1910 may he rest in peace, was actually a bit of an audiophile before the term was probably even coined. I remember he was the first in our very middle class neighborhood to buy a console Zenith stereo, which was the cat's meow at the time in the mid-50s. I grew up listening to Nat King Cole and others of that era playing on vinyl. Then, in the late 50s, my father went a step further and bought an Ampex reel-to-reel tape recorder with portable speakers (this thing looked like a set of luggage) and started making his own mix tapes of what he had on vinyl. This was so that he could play DJ whenever my parents got together to party with their circle of friends, which was just about every Saturday night. Whoever hosted provided the booze (believe me they all drank like fish but only on Saturday nights), and my DJ dad always provided the music. As a kid, I remember hanging out with him, watching and kibitzing whenever he made his tapes. Within a few years, like any good audiophile, he got the upgrade fever again. Out went the Ampex and in came a higher end Sony reel-to-reel that I recall cost around a thousand bucks, not exactly chump change for the early 60s. That Sony got a lot of use. Ive often wondered whatever became of it. To this day, I still enjoy listening to Nat King Cole.
