Adventures in Music Part 1 1970s

My first introduction to music was the same I’m sure for most people, listening to my parents records. I never heard my parents play any of their records, but then I never saw them read any books, but they had plenty of those as well. Not having any knowledge on how record players worked, I was only able to look at the album covers and was curious about their cassette tapes. Their music collection seemed to be mostly Country and Western albums and I distinctly remember them having collections of MARIO LANZA, and the West Side Story Musical stage show.

Beyond that limited music collection I didn’t pay attention to any other music, other than bits and pieces I saw on Saturday morning television, but that was nothing more than music that got in the way of the cartoons I was more interested in.

The first 7inch single I was ever bought was SARAH BRIGHTMAN AND HOT GOSSIP’s I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper. A dire and average disco pop record. I’ve no idea why it was bought for me, I didn't have or know how to use a record player. That wasn't the first record I bought, but was only one of two records my mum ever bought for me. The other was much later, BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN’s Born in the USA 7inch.I remember being invited to a friends birthday party and I brought the record along to be played. I don't think they bothered. The dad of my friend was heavily into Jazz music and had collections of the stuff and listened to it constantly. I'm pleased I never got into that style of music.

I eventually learnt how to use my parent’s record player and was also able to play my parent’s music as well as my own 7inch. I spent countless hours learning how to queue up singles on a record player. I think I experimented with albums to see just how many I could balance on record player at once without ruining them rather than playing them.

One year later for my birthday I was bought a radio cassette recorder, and to go with it was THE BOOMTOWN RATS’ A Tonic for the Troops, containing the songs Like Clockwork and Rat Trap. I listened to this album many times, along with a couple of audio-books and found a few other tapes my parents owned, including the soundtrack to the film Exodus which was incredibly moving, inspiring and probably explains my deep love for soundtrack albums, the main theme was beautiful. I was too young to be trusted with my parents vinyl records.

The following year I was bought a Bontempi organ that had numbers on each of its keys, making it easy to follow and play music specially written for it. It came with half a dozen books allowing you to play common melodies, but I remember my mum buying a special book; SIMON & GARFUNKLE’s Greatest Hits. I’d never heard of either of them (Simon or Garfunkle), and oddly could play their music well even though Id never heard them played properly. So for almost ten years the only version I knew was my crappy cover versions.