vic
Interesting....
I started a bit earlier...Fats Domino, Little Richard, Shads, etc.
Just for interest sake...how many songs(if any) did you actually learn to play from the "Please please me" and "Hard days night" albums ?
Bob-Dubery
I think there's the stuff that's around without us doing anything about it really - what we're exposed to because it's part of our environment. That would explain some of my very early musical memories and my enduring affection for the old Scottish song "The Wild Mountain Thyme". Somewhere along the road I also soaked up a lot of Beethoven. I remember going to see the Beethoven biopic "Immortal Beloved" and recognising nearly all of the music - somehow I knew it without knowing it was Beethoven.
My first albums were Jethro Tull's "Thick As A Brick" and "Before The Flood" by Dylan and The Band. I felt a bit guilty about the latter because mostly the Dylan stuff seemed a bit ragged to me, and whilst I tried hard to like it what really stuck was all those great Robbie Robertson songs that The Band performed.
Then I got an album called "The Guitar Album". A compilation thing - one track each by various guitar players (Clapton, IIRC, actually got two - though one was credited to Derek and the Dominoes). There was Leslie Harvey and Shuggie Otis. And there was THE BLUES in the form of Albert King, Rory Gallagher and some instrumental featuring Mick Taylor. Oh wow! That was some interesting stuff. Also there was Roy Buchanan - all my mates at school were pretending like crazy that OF COURSE they knew who Roy Buchanan was, but nobody had an album. Anyway, The Guitar Album was a great springboard for us, and before long we were out shopping for discs by these guitarists that so amazed us. Somebody (can't remember who) went out shopping for an Albert King record. We nearly beat him up! He was supposed to get ALBERT King. Instead he'd fouled up and bought FREDDY King! Couldn't he read! But we give it a spin anyway and instantly forgave him - Freddy was so good. Also we followed another trail along a road signposted "John Mayall's Bluesbreakers". I got a Bluesbreakers album with a sort of big band vibe, a horn section, and also Mick Taylor in outrageous form on lead guitar.
There was also some Beatles amongst my Dad's record collection. I remember Sgt Pepper's and also Help! The latter intrigued me. Not as sophisticated, but boy it had a groove to it and they sounded like they were really having a good time. I remember Paul's bass parts on Sgt Pepper's catching my ear. I didn't know what it was actually (nobody had told me you got guitar and BASS guitar) but I liked those parts a whole lot. Paul has such a great gift for melody.
Dylan... Dylan got me into words, songs. Another early purchase was Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits. Incredible lyrics on Subterranean Homesick Blues and I Want You. There was the mighty (original) Like A Rolling Stone (the live version on Before The Flood was nowhere near as good).
The army, interestingly, exposed me to quite a lot of music. Notably Neil Young's "After The Goldrush" (a record I still love). Just before that I'd spent some time at the old mining school in Doornfontein and had sought out people who listened to music. That turned me onto the Stones in a big way (I still get a thrill when I hear the intro to "Gimme Shelter") and David Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust" (great swathes of guitar noise by Mick Ronson).
Now... all I'm describing happened in about 2 years. I hadn't paid a whole lot of serious attention to music. Somehow I bumped into a guy who knew lots of Dylan songs and suddenly this door into a whole other world got kicked open and I just couldn't believe how much there was. I got into and back out of prog rock in about 12 months (ELP, especially the live triple album, Yessongs). And I discovered (for want of a better word) live music which was even better somehow.
Yeah... this big 2 to 2.5 year explosion of sound. All sorts of things. Finch & Henson (my favourite live act for some time, how could you beat THAT?), the aforementioned Freddy King, Bowie, Cream, Louis Ribeiro's Palm Boat Band (amazing live act in Durban, sort of Chicago-ish I guess), Trevor Rabin (the first time I saw him playing my eyes nearly popped out of my head - he was so good!), Dylan, Joan Armatrading, Neil Young, Jeff Beck (Blow by Blow), Tull....
The momentum carried on for a while, but nothing beat that early big bang, that thrill of not discovering a particular artist or album, but of discovering MUSIC.
Bob-Dubery
Squonk wrote:
The Beatles and The Who got me Curious
Led Zeppelin got me Convinced
Neil Young got me Connected
XRB got me Committed by getting me to play at the open Mic ?
Too kind, Squonk. I posted something about that open mic night, but it was you that had to work up the material and pluck up the courage. I think Stratisfear might have given your arm a bit of a twist.
But I'm glad that you did get up there. When somebody realises their own creativity the world gets a little richer and little happier.
singemonkey
Just wondering how this is different from the thread that was recently necroposted on? ?
Squonk
@ Singe
I wanted to share on what I was exposed and how I found music. Didn't do it to well. Didn't quite want it to be like the older thread which was "Who Influenced you" That was quite easy and you could answer it in one sentence. I wanted some more meat.
Ray
OK, so whan I was very young - like 2 years old, my parents stopped being together. And my mom was a classical music fan, and in particular opera. But she also liked other stuff. And I remember a lot of Harry Belafonte, and plenty negor spiritual things and I suppose that's blues really. But I dont really like to put a label to music because then people start talking with words like "genre" and other things that I (or them) cant pronounce. And also Burl Ives I like a bit. And then one day I was still wondering about and James Phillips said to me but listen to this closely. Ant it was wish you were here. I think that the simplicity off it just sorted thing out a bit.
makepeace
Hmmm.. When I was really young, I would mainly listen to the stuff my parents used to play. We did a lot of roading between Hermanus and Joburg when I was small, and my dad used to make mix-tapes for the car. I guess thats when it really caught on, we used to do the whole drive in one go. Being 4 or so, I wasn't really in a position to be making my own explorations in the greater world of music, so I made them in subspace created by my parents. Out of the stuff they used to play I used to dig The Troggs, The Kinks, Roxy Music, Cat Stevens, Michelle Shocked, Queen, CCR, Dr Hook and the Medicine Show, Billy Idol and The Knack. Those are the ones which spring to mind, but I'm sure there were others. Apparently shortly after I could walk, I used to jol around the lounge dancing when my dad played his music. Eventually he took the bull by the horns and we finally moved down to Hermanus; he set up the hi-fi with his B & W Pregnant Penguins (which have now been relegated to me ?) in the living room next to the piano and in the arvy after preschool or whatever it was then I would play his CDs and sit and plonk around on the piano. Also found a mic lying around and learned how to make the tape recorder work, which was fun for a while. I got my first ever real CD when I was about 11, Linkin Park - Hybrid Theory :-[. It was cool at the time. The late 90s/early 00s weren't really great years for popular music in my circles, so I wasn't really exposed to much else and didn't really have the means to look for it myself, so the music in me stagnated around then. Started getting into it again when I went to boarding school in Gr 8 where I pretty much rediscovered the 90s; the Violent Femmes, Nirvana, RHCP, Radiohead, Rage Against the Machine etc. I've been on and off with the piano since I was about 9. I would say Nirvana really got me going with the guitar, but I only started much later when I was about 17. I claimed ownership of my sisters classical which was lost on her anyway and have been plonking around ever since.
deefstes
I've enjoyed music since I can remember but the first artists whom I really aspired to was Cat Stevens and Don Francisco. I liked their songs and their guitar playing and they were probably the reason I decided to make an effort of learning to play the guitar.
guidothepimmp
When I was a youngun, my mates at the time were listening to things like public enemy and the like..
I'm talking 9 odd years old. My folks being foreigners always. Had traditional music lying around (mozambican) fado etc..
I never really payed attention to that until I was 11 or so.. Then. It was a musical revelation thanks to old records I would find in pawn shops and my cousin, a muso himself..
Ealry on, twas deep purple, sabbath, thin lizzy, bob dylan, janis joplin, hendrix, shadows, rolling stones.. Etc..
Then I discovered maiden and priest.. And it was no turning back from there
Dingwall
First I heard of this 'boarder' Squonk! - did she have an influence on the mother too?
Luckily for me I had an older brother who did most of the ground work for me, unluckily for me I grew up in the 80s so not a lot of support from friends and school kid piers!
I think the initial order of those that made music an obsession:
Bachman Turner Overdrive (I found an old cassette and played it to death - literally!)
Beatles - (aged 12-14 I didn't really listen to anything else!)
Led Zeppelin (brought guitar to the surface)
U2 (had to have some 80s influence!)
Rush
Everything....
rebelwithoutaclue
Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, George Jones, the Eagles, Alice Cooper, Rush, Triumph, Gordon Lightfoot, BTO, the Stampeders. :?
Hammeron
My Dad tells me he was listening to an inordinate amount of Jethro Tull when my Mum was pregnant with me. { He had to miss their show in Joburg because it was the same week I was scheduled to be born ceasarian!}.
I always wondered where my fondness for men in tights came from, and I actually enjoy Tull too!
Bob-Dubery
X-rated Bob wrote:
I think there's the stuff that's around without us doing anything about it really - what we're exposed to because it's part of our environment. That would explain some of my very early musical memories and my enduring affection for the old Scottish song "The Wild Mountain Thyme". Somewhere along the road I also soaked up a lot of Beethoven. I remember going to see the Beethoven biopic "Immortal Beloved" and recognising nearly all of the music - somehow I knew it without knowing it was Beethoven.
And in England in the 60s there were TWO things that you could not get away from. The Beatles and Motown. Motown acts had a large number of hits in the UK back then, especially the Supremes. So almost by default you got exposed to the Supremes, Smoky Robinson and the Miracles, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye...
vic
X-rated Bob wrote:
X-rated Bob wrote:
I think there's the stuff that's around without us doing anything about it really - what we're exposed to because it's part of our environment. That would explain some of my very early musical memories and my enduring affection for the old Scottish song "The Wild Mountain Thyme". Somewhere along the road I also soaked up a lot of Beethoven. I remember going to see the Beethoven biopic "Immortal Beloved" and recognising nearly all of the music - somehow I knew it without knowing it was Beethoven.
And in England in the 60s there were TWO things that you could not get away from. The Beatles and Motown. Motown acts had a large number of hits in the UK back then, especially the Supremes. So almost by default you got exposed to the Supremes, Smoky Robinson and the Miracles, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye...
Motown was also fairly popular here in the 60's...I remember doing "The same ol' song" (Four Tops), "Stop in the name of love" and "You can't hurry love" (both by Supremes) . All these songs had good bass lines connected to tight drumming...
Here's a personal favourite
=
Squonk
Trini Lopez was big stuff in my house. I remember a folk album he made with Puff the Magic Dragon.
I have huge memories of Elvis, my mother was a bit of a fan. When she had a drink too much "In the Ghetto" used to blare out. Still makes me miserable when I hear it today.
vic
Squonk wrote:
Trini Lopez was big stuff in my house. I remember a folk album he made with Puff the Magic Dragon.
I have huge memories of Elvis, my mother was a bit of a fan. When she had a drink too much "In the Ghetto" used to blare out. Still makes me miserable when I hear it today.
Yip...Trini was very popular. I remember 1000's flocked to see him in CTown when he toured SA...he did some nice sing-a-longs... LOL .
Sebber
I was born in 1975 (in Denmark, but my parents moved to the UK when I was a few months old), and my earliest musical memories are listening to The Beatles, The Moody Blues, and Wings... I was heavily into Wings, and The Beatles, when I was very young, because it was something I'd love to sing along to. I also had a half sister and half brother, 10 and 5 years older than me respectively, so I was introduced to Pink Floyd at around about the time The Wall came out, I remember watching the movie, my sister had it on Betamax (I think it was), when I was probably 6... my older half siblings also had thousands of audio tapes that I'd "borrow" (i.e. steal), and I got exposed to all sorts of stuff pretty young. A lot of the tapes I nicked off them were recordings from BBC Radio 1's Top 40 countdown that they put on Sunday nights... my half sister used to record it religiously. She also loved the TV series Fame! back in the '80s... man the show sucked but I remember enjoying a lot of the music when I was a brat.
I took piano lessons from age 7, and got seconded into the school choir aged 8, and I learned an early appreciation for classical music, which I still love to this day.
Then I saw Back To The Future in '84 or '85 and I got obsessed with guitar (and skateboarding, which I fortunately gave up), I got my first guitar that Christmas because I wouldn't shut up about it... at about the same time I found out about Chuck Berry and Little Richard. I took lessons for about 6 months then got into some other pointless kid's fad. I got into Huey Lewis and The News as well at about the same time... man, I loved that stuff!
I was 12 when my older half brother introduced me to Led Zep. He also put me onto AC/DC, Aerosmith and a few others, but it was Led Zep that did it for me. My 12-year-old ears only needed to hear Stairway to Heaven once and I was reaching for the guitar that had been untouched for a year or so. It's been my passion ever since.
In Summary:
Got me into music: The Beatles, and specifically Paul McCartney's voice always had some kind of hold over me, especially when I was younger but still to a certain extent to this day.
Got me into guitar: Marty McFly in the first Back to The Future (and Huey Lewis and The News).
Got me HOOKED on guitar: Led Zep IV. When I heard that my brain melted and I've never been the same since.
Squonk
Really digging into the archives of my brain -
My Dad's record collection that I shied away from -
Dean Martin - Numerous Albums
Al Jolson - This was scary stuff
Brenda Lee - Just as scary
Ivan Rebroff - aargh
Records I played from the collection -
The Hollies - Stay
Mungo Jerry - I cant recall which album
Trini Lopez - At PJ's, The Folk Album
The Beatles - Please Please me, Hard Days Night, Beatles for Sale
The Congregation - Softly Whispering I love You
Dodgy Singles I bought in the early 70's
Hot Chocolate - Emma
The Arrows - Touch To Much
Alan Garrity - Someone to lean on
Cozy Powell - Na Na Na
Mud - Dynamite
Nilsson - Without You
Johnny Kongos - He's gonna step on you again
Clint-Green
I didn't have much to choose from music-wise as a kid, my folks were into Cliff Richard, Abba, Smokey, etc. and I never much liked any of it BUT my dad did have a couple of Elvis tapes and LPs lying around and of course, those being the"heaviest"-sounding of the lot, I naturally gravitated toward them and really got into Elvis' music. That was what peaked my curiosity for music from the age of about 7 or 8. Of course I'd liked songs I'd heard on the radio and all that but this was the first musician I actually IDENTIFIED as a favourite and also made me wany to play guitar.
Later I heard Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer" on TV and heard Guns n Roses' "Welcome To The Jungle" on an old movie with Morgan Freeman as a school teacher (can't for the life of me remember what the movie was called). From what I read in a few magazines, this sound was called Heavy Metal. I really liked it!!!
Now as far back as I can remember I've always been attracted to halloween/horror/scary monsters and stuff and that was what really got me to pay attention to Metal for the first time. I didn't have any older brothers or cousins or friends who were into the stuff and I was never exposed to it as a kid (South Africa in the 80's wanted no part of that!) but I do remember when I was 11 or 12 years old, going into a CNA with R20, scratching around in the bargain bin, pulling out a Metallica's "Creeping Death/Jump In The Fire" cassette EP, looking at the cover artwork and thinking "WHAT IS THIS?!?!?!?!". I ran to the counter, paid for it and rushed home without even listening to it first. Got home, popped it into my walkman, put on the headphones, turned up the volume and pressed play. That moment changed my life forever. I was mesmerised. This was IT. This was ME. The guitar playing was simply inhuman!!!! I had a second-hand TV game console that I'd just gotten, saved up for months and months to buy (I'd had it for about a week and absolutely loved it) and after hearing Metallica and Kirk Hammet's searing guitar solos I quickly sold it to a neighbor so that I could buy my first electric guitar (a kiddie-sized Starfire strat copy with just a bridge single-coil for 200 bucks).
After that I started seeking out material by other bands which I'd read about in hard rock mags (which wasn't easy here in East London as I still knew NO-ONE who listened t the stuff) like Megadeth, Pantera, Sepultura, etc... I was completely hooked and still am now, 18 years later!
flatfourfan
I was started on rock from an early age, growing up in the UK in the 70's meant that I was exposed to a lot of stuff that wouldn't of been playing in SA.
However I do remember the first time that I ever saw an Iron Maiden (Powerslave) LP and thought whooooooa. Been into metal and rock since I was about 14ish.
