A question occurred to me the other day. What was the first record album you purchased with your own money?
I only purchased a handful of records when I was a kid. I never purchased a 45 single and I don’t really remember the first record I ever bought. I don’t believe I’ve ever purchased a pop or rock album.
I’m confident that my first album was either a folk or jazz album, either a Limelighters (at one point I owned all of them) or a jazz album, most likely Brubeck’s Time Out.
Whatever it was it has long disappeared. That’s something that happens when you have siblings.
What was the first record album you purchased with your own money?
All bought concurrently in one session.
The Allman Brothers Band Live at Fillmore East.
Led Zeppelin I.
Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue.
Uriah Heap. (I know, you can’t win them all)
In my case it brought on a lifetime affair with blues based rock (Zeppelin and Allmans, later Stones) and with the whole Davis/Coltrane/Bill Evans genre of jazz.
Getting into the gear ultimately lead me down the path to so many different types of music but most notably opera and large orchestral pieces. As fate would have it Dave’s post comes as I prepare to ” retire” the Hovland electronics to the “B” system in Florida and almost inevitably replace with Audio Research’s new Galileo electronics with their new-for-them KT tubes for the “A” system.
Three likely candidates.
Van Halen’s Fair Warning
Classic Yes
Iron Maiden’s Piece of Mind
And now it comes back to me. The first two were both gifts from a friend (I thought maybe only one had been), and Iron Maiden was the second one I bought. The first was was actually Blue Oyster Cult’s self-titled first album. I think the third album was a collection of piano pieces, mostly Beethoven.
Loved all of those albums, and I can’t believe I almost forgot the BOC. “I’m on the Lamb But I Ain’t No Sheep”, “She’s as Beautiful as a Foot”, and “Before the Kiss (a Redcap)”… Gas as cheap as thrills! Ah, good times!
Hard to remember. We used to get mom to buy a few 45’s from the Kmart while I was in grade school, some might have been with my allowance money. Could have been something like Barry Manilow, Copacabana, or the Greatest American Hero song. I remember looking for Steve Martin, King Tut, but alas it was not to be. My friends got to watch SNL, but I was only allowed to stay up to watch election returns. They sang King Tut on the grade, and I learned to sing it from them, so I could stay apace.
Slow interest in music. First long-player was probably The Beatles, either Sgt. Pepper’s, or the Blue Album. Even then my younger brother pretty quickly became a bigger Beatles’ fan than me, so he got the Red Album and Abby Road, etc.
And then came Freshman year in high school, a little scarier crowd, new influences. (think “Freaks and Geeks”) And I had to have Rush, 2112, Led Zeppelin IV, and Def Leppard, Pyromania. And then things became a bit obsessive, though a lot of purchases from the cut-out bins at the mall.
Asked my wife her first, and she said it was probably too embarrassing to admit, but it was King Tut. All my life I’ve been seeking . . .
My wife loved that story, PD!
And cut out bins…. I feel so completely alien in this world!
Two of them, though they were actually 8 tracks as we didn’t have room for a record player in our dorm room in corps school. The three of us, roommates, each bought two. (Pretty sure they bought Who’s Next, Blonde On Blonde, The WHite Album and I’ll be dammed if I can remember the fourth.) Mine were…
Let It Bleed
Class Clown
Steve
The Stones in full flight.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xZz0mTb1qtU
Know your rock n roll !!
Woody Pane was credited with Love In Vain. The real author – Robert Johnson……….but who did he knick it from?
Who were the massed choresters on You Can’t Always Get…………the London Bach Choir or London. City Choir? LBC
Which guitar solo interweave from this album later became the widely acknowledged best live solos the Stone / ever did? Mick Taylor and Keith on Midnight Rambler, later captured on Get Yer Ya-Yas Out.
Who knows what Monkey Man is really about. That’s OK, no one else does either.
Meet The Beatles.
I talked Susie into going in with me half and half. I think it was 4 dollars. i bought it at Whitworth’s. I guess that would be 1964.
” That’s something that happens when you have siblings.” It wasn’t me! 🙂 You had a great record collection. I particularly admired Dave Von Ronk.