What music did you grow up to?
 

Neil Diamond was my absolute fave. Then it was Cat Stevens, Jim Croce, and believe it or not the pre face-lift Kenny Rogers.

By earliest recollection...

Creedence
American Pie (the song).. I remember hearing that song when I lived in Richmond, & I was 6 years old there...

In Vienna Virginia I was 7, & I remember liking the Billy Joel song 'she's always a woman'. I also remember having a crush on Olivia Newton John. I also remember captain and tennile, and Kenny Rogers being very popular at that time.

When we moved to PA I was a huge Kiss fan. I went through a Black Sabath phase a Lynyrd Skynyrd phase and then there was Ozzy, AC/DC, deep purple and Ronnie James Dio .... Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and all of those great classic bands where what I listened to through junior and senior high school. Above all I liked Led Zeppelin. Led Zeppelin. Led freakin Zeppelin. They are music.

Three Dog Night...!

Musicals, opera and whatever was in the Top 40.

Mum & Dad bonded over musicals. One of the first films they went to see together was a musical and both were slightly embarrassed, worried what the other would think. In the 60s you went to see what was on, regardless. Turns out they both loved it.

Mum was raised on Opera because Grandad was a stage-hand at that point and could get free tickets.

And Dads, despite almost crippling shyness, ended up as the chief record buyer for the works record library. So from a very early age we had access to everything in the charts; and not just the singles that my well-off friends could talk their parents into buying for them.

Saying this, none of us grew up with any real musical bent.
I still love musicals, and will bust out a tune in the shower. But Sissy and my bro are meh about music. None of us are particularly passionate. I go for lyrics rather than tunes.

Billy Swan, Jim Croce, Beatles, Eric Clapton, The Band, KISS, AC/DC

Earliest songs I can remember singing are "Yesterday" and "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head", and "I Can Help".


Thread Drift: JJ Cale has died. Wrote "Cocaine", "After Midnight", & "They Call Me The Breeze", among many other great songs from my (our) youth.

Shook hands w/Ronnie James Dio at like 2am in Nashville, a few hours after a "Sacred Heart" tour stop (theatrically, BEST SHOW EVAH!!!) in, I think it was 1986. We were both walking on the sidewalk, I stopped, pointed at him, and he just took, and shook my hand and never stopped walking.

Dude was like three feet tall.

My grandparents had a large, wooden console stereo. On it would be heard--to my recollection--The Devil Went Down to Georgia.

Years later, we had a Sears component stereo cabinet with the vinyl player on top. We had The Wall quadruple album, with killer artwork (weren't vinyl albums a great canvas for artwork?) as well as a fine selection of Metallica, Iron Maiden, AC/DC, and early Pantera. Mostly metal.

The first album I bought with my own money was a cassette tape of RATT, Out of the Cellar.