Pop bought me a Webcor portable(still had to plug it in) radio/phonograph, and two 45rpm records, for my birthday. Rock Around the Clock, by Bill Haley, and Sixteen Tons, by Ernie Ford.
He also bought a bunch of albums(Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, etc), for he and Mom to play on "my" phonograph.
At school I joined a record club, and bought mostly country-western, heavy on Marty Robbins, Johnny Cash, etc.
After graduation I bought a stereo and a whole library of music from Readers Digest... quite a broad spectrum from classical to Broadway... Ferde Grofé's Grand Canyon Suite gave me a woodie.
But mostly music was a radio thing and FM was a revelation. I'd work in the garage until the wee hours, mostly to listen to late night FM radio. Got a lot done that watching TV wouldn't allow, but that was a secondary benefit.
Then I discovered sex-drugs-rock-n-roll, and it was all a 1700 album downhill from there.
