Kevin's Watch

Posted: **Fri Jun 03, 2011 2:47 am**

What are some of the songs and artists that you remember from your childhood? What do you remember being played in your home, or on the radio while you were growing up? To this day I have guilty musical pleasures that I am ashamed to admit because I had them drilled into my ears as a child. Here is some of the music that was regularly played by my parents:

The Doors

The Beatles

Jimmy Buffet

Hank Williams Jr. (I know but heh I'm from Alabama, and it was during that redneck chic period that spawned the Outlaw Country Music movement, Urban Cowboy, Smoky and The Bandit, and The Dukes of Hazzard )

John Hartford and other assorted "newgrass" artists

Black Sabbath

Assorted 50's and 60's Rock and Roll (My mom loved the Oldies)

The Beach Boys

Elvis

The Who

Alabama (I hate to admit that know every word to Tennessee River, Mountain Music, and My Homes In Alabama.)

Led Zeppelin (I took this one and ran with it)

Janis Joplin

Waylon Jennings (What a voice!)

Willie Nelson

This is just a sample of the music that I was surrounded by during my formative years, what music helped shape you?

Posted: **Fri Jun 03, 2011 5:52 am**

The Beatles, and rebel sh*t compilations, played on car journeys. Look up some other songs by that band on Youtube and read the comments and you'll see why I moved away from NI.

Posted: **Fri Jun 03, 2011 6:26 am**

my parents listened to country music. so i got to hear whatever was popular in the 70's through to the 80's.

and theme songs to popular tv shows. and who knows how many commercials.

i bet lots of people have the same experience.

Posted: **Fri Jun 03, 2011 2:10 pm**

I was given a heap of 50's singles to play on my little bitty record player when I was a kid. Elvis, the Everly Bros, etc. I know I was given these by my grandmother, but now I'm wondering if it wasn't originally owned by one of my parents. And now I can't think of which grandmother gave these to me.

My mom listened to a lot of showtunes - Pippin, Jesus Christ Superstar, and such. I remember the 8-track of JCS fondly, and dodging through the songs I didn't like by switching tracks.

My dad listened to country, so Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson I took a liking to, but I never got excited by Waylon or Hank Williams Jr. I also remember listening a lot to the soundtrack to Barbarella, which I had little kid dance routines to a couple songs (hey, I have two older sisters...whattayagonnado?). My mom hated that album though, as she was pregnant with me when my dad was overlistening to that album.

My two older sisters got me into Queen and Frank Zappa.

My mom picked up Chipmunks Sing The Beatles at a garage sale, and that introduced me to the Beatles (either that or Yellow Submarine on TV). Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band movie came out and me and my sisters threw money together to pick up the soundtrack to that. I remember checking out the red and blue greatest hits albums from the library numerous times, and I think one of my sisters had Abbey Road, but was kind of protective of that. And the library had the Broadway version of Grease, which was disappointing as I really wanted the movie soundtrack.

Posted: **Fri Jun 03, 2011 3:08 pm**

Kiss
Johnny Cash
The Beatles

Posted: **Fri Jun 03, 2011 5:30 pm**

I "discovered" music around 12 years old, maybe 13.

I got started on Elvis. Yes, my older brother thought that there was something wrong with me when at age 12, I ordered Elvis' Madison Square Garden album from a TV ad.

Then I moved on to the Beatles and the Stones.

Help was the first song I memorized all the words to.

Then the Cars for some reason.

My mother listened to Irish music.
Always had it on while cooking when I was little.
I hated it.
Now I love it.

Posted: **Fri Jun 03, 2011 6:15 pm**

High Lord Tolkien wrote:I "discovered" music around 12 years old, maybe 13.

I got started on Elvis. Yes, my older brother thought that there was something wrong with me when at age 12, I ordered Elvis' Madison Square Garden album from a TV ad.

Then I moved on to the Beatles and the Stones.

Help was the first song I memorized all the words to.

oddly this part of your experience mirrors mine, with the exception that i have always, since i was old enough to talk, loved music. i still (at 52 ys old) know the lyrics of pop tunes from the am radio stations my mother listened to when i was a wee thing (Will I See You in September and Last Kiss come to mind! lol!!) when i was six or seven Help and Hard Days Night (the films) came to The Strand theater in downtown Lexington as a double feature and my mother and i went and sat in the balcony and screamed (along with all the other females in the packed house) at the screen!! LOL!!

my mother loved Elvis. we also had that same album!!
my dad had different tastes...motown in particular, so there was a LOT of otis redding, supremes, dusty springfield, marvin gaye, aretha franklin, smokey robinson, four tops, martha and the vandellas, gladys knight, mary wilson, etc.
he also loved dylan and the band. Before the Flood and Desire were played endlessly in the house. he seemed to love roots music so it was my dad that turned me on to John Prine. we also watched Hee Haw and the Porter Waggoner Show every week so i grew to love Roy Clark, Buck Owens, Hoyt Axton, and, yes...Dolly Parton (who got her start on the porter waggoner show.) also Van Morrison, Leon Russell, and Joe Cocker.
daddy also loved jazz so i heard a lot of ella fitzgerald, miles, coltrane, etc.

also i somehow developed a love of musical theater so South Pacific, Funny Girl, My Fair Lady, The Fantastiks, West Side Story, Fiddler on the Roof, Sound of Music, and Gypsy all figure in there too!

the soundtrack of my childhood is vast!!

Posted: **Fri Jun 03, 2011 9:00 pm**

what altered my experience was mtv. i started getting into all sorts of rock.

then with a paycheck from cashiering at Shaw's i started developing my own tastes.

and headed to the punk section. buying Husker Du's : Zen Arcade and Metal Circus.

that changed my life. i found music that mirrored how i was feeling.

Posted: **Fri Jun 03, 2011 9:57 pm**

From home with the parents: Country mostly, especially Johnny Cash, Hank Sr., very rarely Hank Jr and Tom Jones. [when my mom had an extra Black Velvet on the rocks or two]

From my aunts and uncles babysitting: The soundtrack to "Hair," CSN [and sometimes Y

] the Dead, the Doors, Jefferson Airplane, Zep, Deep Purple...and I think Strawberry Alarm Clock, though that may just be drifting randomly through my brain.

Posted: **Sat Jun 04, 2011 11:48 pm**

I remember the LPs that my brother and one of my older sisters had back in the 70s, like:

Simon & Garfunkel Greatest Hits
Blood Sweat & Tears Greatest Hits
Parliament Dr. Funkenstein
Alice Cooper goes to Hell
Elvis Presley Live from Hawaii

I think the first LP I ever bought (with my own saved $) was Micheal Jackson's "Thriller." I also remember buying Journey "Frontier." After that, it was cassettes, like:

Van Halen 5150
Scorpions World Wide Live
Hank Williams JR Greatest Hits

Posted: **Sun Jun 05, 2011 1:27 am**

From my parents' collection:

Joe Satriani- Surfing with the Alien
Cat Stevens- Tea for the Tillerman
U2- Rattle and Hum

And a constant rotation of blues musicians, including Muddy Waters, Skip James, Johnny Winter, Robert Johnson, Rory Gallagher, and uncounted others.

Posted: **Sun Jun 05, 2011 5:15 am**

Patsy Cline ("Walkin" / "Crazy" / "I fall to pieces")
Hank Williams Sr. ("Cold, Cold Heart," "Take these chains from my heart and set me free")
Frank Sinatra
Bing Crosby
Nat King Cole
Simon & Garfunkel
Johnny Cash
CCR (esp. "Bad moon risin' " My dad would make up some funny excuse to randomly just play that one on the LP.)

Random songs: "Tequila" (And then my dad would say, "They don't write 'em like they used to. <pause> Thaank goodness.")
"Jeremiah was a bullfrog"
"Honeycomb"

Posted: **Sun Jun 05, 2011 12:24 pm**

Haha, that remined me of a random song Dad used to play by some old bluesman, all about drinking. No idea who it was. I still remember some of the lyrics:

So i called up my pal Jack Daniels
And his partner Jim Beam
And we drank alone
Yeah, nobody else
Said when I drink alone, you know I,
I prefer to be by myself

Posted: **Sun Jun 05, 2011 1:10 pm**

Both mom and daddy loved symphonic music. Daddy also loved show tunes, whereas mom was pretty much the same as Linna, minus the country and CCR.

Posted: **Fri Jun 17, 2011 9:13 pm**

Posted: **Fri Jun 17, 2011 9:53 pm**

Cambo wrote:Haha, that remined me of a random song Dad used to play by some old bluesman, all about drinking. No idea who it was. I still remember some of the lyrics:

So i called up my pal Jack Daniels
And his partner Jim Beam
And we drank alone
Yeah, nobody else
Said when I drink alone, you know I,
I prefer to be by myself

Heh...George Thorogood...great irony since every song he ever did [maybe not every one, but a whole damn lot, is thoroughlyBAD...like:
I'm bad to the bone...
b-bb-b-bbb-bad!]
Actually...I don't know if he wrote I drink alone, or just covered it...I know I lived it for a bit, hitching and camping from L.A. to N.Y.

Posted: **Fri Jun 17, 2011 10:55 pm**

My dad loved Jim Croce's music. On weekend mornings he would crank up the cassette deck with his tunes, he had other favorites, like Bill Haley and the Comets, but Croce sticks in my mind. To this day, Operator is one of my favorite melancholy songs.

Posted: **Sat Jun 18, 2011 4:53 am**

From my parents:
Suza
Operas
more marching bands
very boring stuff
From my early childhood:
Carpenters
Beatles
KC and the Sunshine Band
Dr. John the night Tripper
Sonny and Cher
the Bee Gees
When I started to listen to my own music:
KISS
Captain Beefheart
Pink Floyd
Frank Zappa
Fleetwood Mac
Alice Cooper

Posted: **Sat Jun 18, 2011 6:28 am**

when i turned 16 and had my own money i went nuts...

Husker Du
Minutemen
REM
Cramps
Dead Milkmen

when I move out at 18...

Throwing Muses
Robyn Hitchcock
Pixies
Lemonheads
Buffalo Tom
Blake Babies

Posted: **Sun Jun 19, 2011 7:07 am**

Damelon wrote:My dad loved Jim Croce's music. On weekend mornings he would crank up the cassette deck with his tunes, he had other favorites, like Bill Haley and the Comets, but Croce sticks in my mind. To this day, Operator is one of my favorite melancholy songs.

One time when I come to see Dad, I must take a trip down to Alabama. I love the Alabama 3 (tho' they are from Brixton in London I think), Sweet Home Alabama and.......... Alabama Rain by Jim Croce.

Kevin's Watch

The Soundtrack To Your Childhood

The Soundtrack To Your Childhood