What Are Your Earliest Memories of Music?

[jazzbo]

Chris, no, the Red Rooster I knew was in Philly. . . .

[alankin]

Chris, no, the Red Rooster I knew was in Philly. . . .

Where was it located in Philly?

[jazzbo]

Well, a matter of blocks away from the site of the old Connie Mack Stadium.

It was on (I am not sure I am spelling this right; I was eleven when I left there in 1966) Sommerset St. or Ave.

[Jim R]

There was always a lot of music at our house, particularly my mom playing the piano (all the standards from the 30's, 40's, etc, as well as classical pieces). We had some kids records (Little Toot, Rusty in orchestraville), classical LP's, Arthur Fiedler/Boston Pops, Rodgers & Hammerstein soundtracks, but they didn't get played very often. My dad had a 45 (red vinyl) of Brother Bones doing Sweet Georgia Brown (the classic Harlem Globetrotters theme), but as far as black music, there wasn't much around until I and my brothers got older and started buying our own records.

One of the earliest memories I can muster up was hearing "Way down upon the Swanee River..." on a tv show (I'm pretty sure it was a kids variety show hosted by Andy Devine).

Oh... and we also had music when we went on vacation... my mom would pull out her uke and we'd sing around the campfire. Things like "Ragtime Cowboy Joe", "My Grandfather's Clock", "Shine On Harvest Moon"... This reminds me- my grandfather in Tacoma had a player piano, and I remember hearing "(I got a gal in) Kalamazoo", "Anchors Aweigh", "Sioux City Sue"... wish I could remember more.

[alankin]

Well, a matter of blocks away from the site of the old Connie Mack Stadium.

It was on (I am not sure I am spelling this right; I was eleven when I left there in 1966) Sommerset St. or Ave.

Here's a map of the neighboorhood:

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=West+Somerse...,0.014594&hl=en

The Stadium was between Somerset & Lehigh, 20th & 21st. The block the stadium is on had a large church built on it several years ago.

I pass the site often on the train. Here's a satellite image taken within the last few years:

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Lehigh+Ave++...07918&t=k&hl=en

The church has a blue roof. The building in the lower left is a high school. The Septa (formerly Penn Central) R8 train tracks are on the lower right.

Edited April 24, 2005 by alankin

[jazzbo]

Okay, I think I lived at 1685 Somerset. . . so the Rooster would have been in that block. But I'm not positive; I can rememer the phone number exactly, but have less confidence in the street address. People on our street used to either sell parking spaces for ballgames, or block off with cones their own spaces so they weren't taken by visitors to the stadium.

When I was there it was not a nice neighborhood. Haven't been back since a drive through about 1972.

Edited April 24, 2005 by jazzbo

[Spontooneous]

Early: Little Golden Records, and my father's records of military band music.

Truly, it's a miracle that I don't hate music.

[jazzypaul]

my first memories of music were all about obsessing over...(gulp)...Abba.

I was 3. I can be forgiven.

[Brad]

My earliest recollection is listening to my parents records, espcially broadway scores, like the Pajama Game, West Side Story and Guys and Dolls. They also had George M. Cohan records. I remember H-A-R-R-I-N-G-T-O-N spells Harrington. I can still remember that tune a little bit. I'm whistling as I write this.

[Ron S]

My earliest recollection is listening to my parents records, espcially broadway scores, like the Pajama Game, West Side Story and Guys and Dolls.  They also had George M. Cohan records.  I remember H-A-R-R-I-N-G-T-O-N spells Harrington.  I can still remember that tune a little bit.  I'm whistling as I write this.

The whistling might be a bit easier if you try "H-A-Double R-I-G-A-N spells HARRIGAN." I think Cohan found that a bit easier, also.

[vibes]

Whatever my mother listened to, that's what I heard first. The things I can remember the best are:

ABBA

Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture (loved those cannons when I was a kid!)

Air Supply

ABBA and Air Supply don't bother me these days because I grew up with them. I probably wouldn't touch them otherwise. I'm glad my mother introduced me to classical music, because I've always enjoyed it and have searched out many new composers as a result of that introduction. And, I find that most people my age and younger (I'm 28) don't appreciate it, and I think they're really missing out.

[B. Goren.]

Good question BM. It takes me back to my childhood. When I was 3 or 4 years old I used to go with my parents every weekend to visit my grandparents from my mother side. I remember my late grandfather sitting most of the time on the balcony and listening to classical music on the radio.

[Chrome]

I didn't really start getting into music until I was 9 or 10, when I got a transistor radio for my birthday and started listening to a local R&B station ... Spinners, Gladys Knight, etc., this was very early 1970s ... then, when I was 12, I saw the movie "Tommy," and that was certainly a musical memory I'll never forget!

[alankin]

When I was there it was not a nice neighborhood. Haven't been back since a drive through about 1972.

It still isn't, alas...

[LAL]

I received liberal doses of Bee Gees, ABBA, Boney M etc at about age 3 or 4, when the music was all the rage. Still like some of it today.

[wolff]

My early musical experiences too started with a similar LP. My dad would put on a recording of the 1963 NHRA Winternationals [drag racing] and put it on headphones. I loved that.

Lions Drag Strip, Long Beach, CA?

The music of those cars rocked me to sleep on weekends.

[PHILLYQ]

My parents liked 'easy listening' and I remember watching Lawrence Welk and the Ed Sullivan show(Beatles, Stones,Doors and tons of godawful music!).

When I was about 9 or 10(1965-66) my two sisters started to play folk music for me and also some acoustic blues, so I got a solid dose of Bob Dylan(banned by my father because he hated the way Dylan sang!), Dave VanRonk, Peter Paul & Mary, Son House, etc. Around 11-12 I got into rock and electric blues along with my sisters. Around 16 I started on jazz and everyone hated it except me!

[joeface]

Unfortunately I grew up in a relatively music-less household. I'm 29 (born in 75)... the earliest song I remember enjoying and trying to sing along to on the radio was Billy Joel's My Life. I must have been three or four.

And that Italiano song Shuttup a ya face (who the heck sang that one?) ... yeah I grew up in an Italian family too.

I also remember my oldest sister singing (off key) and playing on the acoustic guitar old Joni Mitchell tunes like Both Sides Now and One Tin Soldier.

As far as earliest songs I enjoyed that I don't remember, my brother recently claimed than when I was 2 and he was a teenager playing his Van Halen 8 tracks, I would run around the house loudly singing "Running with the Devil" along to the chorus of that song. This pissed off my mom accordingly.

Didn't have any jazz on my radar until years later when my dad started to play for me big band and swing (Dorsey brothers, Glen Miller, and Buddy Rich especially).

j

[Alexander]

The first music I remember hearing was by the Beatles and Wings. My parents had several Beatles albums (Meet the Beatles, Help!, Beatles 65, Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper, Magical Mystery Tour, Yellow Submarine, The Beatles (The White Album), Let It Be, Abbey Road, and Hey Jude). I especially remember being freaked out by "Elinore Rigby." I took the line "Waits at the window/wearing a face that she keeps/in a jar by the door" VERY literally. I could imagine a face in a jar...creeped me out! I was also scared by the song "Run For Your Life" from "Rubber Soul" when Lennon sings: "You'd better run for your life if you can, little girl/Hide your head in the sand, little girl." I imagined a little girl (like Shirley Temple) taking her head off of her neck and burying it in a bucket of sand...

The Wings albums I remember best were "Band On The Run" and "Venus and Mars" (which are also the only Wings albums I have on CD today). I was very fond of those albums.

Other albums I remember: "There Goes Rhymin' Simon" by Paul Simon (a wonderful album), "Nashville Skyline" (apart from "Greatest Hits," the only Dylan album my parents owned...although they did have the infamous "Great White Wonder" bootleg), several Jim Croce albums, "Pearl" by Janis Joplin, "Tapestry" by Carol King, "Endless Summer" by the Beach Boys, and a bunch of Billy Joel albums that my folks bought as they were released in the late 70s and early 80s (I think they stopped after "An Innocent Man").

Edited April 27, 2005 by Alexander

[tonym]

As a very young kid, we didn't have a stereo in the house, but I remember at maybe 3 or 4 watching 'Top Of The Pops' with my older sister.

I'm sure this was many British kid's intro to music of any description.

Catholic masses featured music of a very different genre, as did school assemblies which seemed to go on forever, with much 'happy clapping'

My earliest visual memories are of the above TV prog with the likes of Rod Stewart and fortunately, Pan's People who were a dance troup choreographed to the bands who couldn't appear on the show. They featured some very attractive chicks who would go on to play a large part in my formative years....

At my grandparents house they had a tape recorder (the single speaker variety) and one tape; some Jim Reeves compilation. That was it.

At about 6, we moved house and my uncles would visit more often, one played blues guitar and he gave me a large poster illustrating loads of 'leccy guitars like Strats and Flying V's, stufff like that. I had that on my wall for years.

My sister around this time was heavily into the 'Bay City Rollers' so my poster lost the fight for wall space with all her posters and tartan artefacts.

It's amzing how one can develop a taste for something which played so little a part during those imprtant years. I remember asking Michael Nyman at a Q&A session what/who he was exposed to as a youngster. He said his parents owned one 78. The 'Happy Wanderer'. Made me think there was hope.

[Drew Peacock]

This was just too fun for me as a child. My mom still has my player along with many film/music strips tucked away in her attic. Here is the 3 little pigs, one of my favorites along with Peter Rabbit:

[BillF]

In the period 1946-50 when I was aged 6 to 10, some of the hit tunes that came out of the radio were decidedly boppish; "Open the Door Richard", "The Woody Woodpecker's Song" and Nellie Lutcher's "Hurry on Down to My Place". They probably prepared the way for my addiction to Charlie Parker from the age of 18!

[A Lark Ascending]

This was just too fun for me as a child. My mom still has my player along with many film/music strips tucked away in her attic. Here is the 3 little pigs, one of my favorites along with Peter Rabbit:

I lived in Singapore from 1965-68. We were deluged with American pop culture there - comic books, the latest TV series etc - on a level way above what I'd known in the UK (I suspect union rules in Blighty forbade the entry of a Marvel comic unless a copy of the Beano went the other way). I can recall looking enviously as a 10 year old at the massive Civil War sets of soldiers and dreaming of possessing them.

One thing we did have was a 'Show'n Tell'. All quite bizarre as the records/slide sets we had to play on them were also clearly American - I still have memories of watching one on George Washington and the Great Colonial Insurrection (though I think it had a more partisan title).

We also had Australian Corn Flakes which tasted very different to English Corn Flakes.

Edited June 2, 2009 by Bev Stapleton

[rostasi]

jazz...nearly all jazz...

[BeBop]

My parents weren't into music. But they were into childhood development, which meant that we all got music lessons. Since I was the oldest, I started first. So my first exposure to music (that I can recall) came at age 4: my own piano lessons!