A musical moment that changed your life....

Folks,

Most of us would say that music has changed our lives.

Is there one specific musical experience that actually changed your life?

When I bought Kate Bush's "the Kick Inside" on LP, I stayed up one night listening to it over and over in my small apartment. I had this fantasy that Kate was singing "The Man with the Child in his Eyes" to me. (You know how it is with music - I was very young then too ).
I realised that I felt more strongly about Kate Bush than I did for my girlfriend of the time so I decided it was time to break off the relationship. In hindsight, it was the right thing to do but if it wasn't for my evening with Kate Bush, it would have happened months later (possibly never - yikes).

 

I was into music pretty much since birth. It has been my whole life.

I can't cite any instance where a single event with music changed anything.

 

Friends,

I have told this story once before....

It was 1957, I was 6. My Mom and were at the one shopping mall (outdoor type) in the city I grew up in--Peoria, Illinois. I asked my Mom, if I could have a dollar. I went into a Store that sold records. They also sold console HiFi's and Radios. I went to the 45 rack, looked over the many offerings and picked out a picture sleeve 45 of Too Much by Elvis Presley. From that moment on, as a child, I was hooked on buying and collecting 45's. By the time I graduated from high school in 1969, I had 700 of those big-holed wonders. My memories of purchasing and collecting 45's in those years is a fond one in a time before I purchased LP's, saw a President assassinated, saw fellow high school classmates drafted into Vietnam, grew up, got married, later got a divorce, worked in a career with responsibilities, re-started my career after being down-sized (twice), began purchasing CD's and worrying about such things as mastering. Then, it was strictly wonderment...a pure, quintessential moment in time that I shall forever cherish.

Can I go back there?

Bob

 

I saw Led Zeppelin in 1969 with my dad when I was 15. Our seats were row 14 dead center. My dad got the tickets at the ticket booth at noon when they went on sale. He said he walked up to the window and there was no line. That was my first big rock concert. I couldn't believe the great musicianship displayed by that four piece band. Led Zeppelin was promoting their soon to be released album #3. They opened up with the Immigrant song. It still gives me goose bumbs when I think of it.

 

Bob and Steve,

I am a little younger than you guys and I have often regretted not being there. My favourite period is the sixties and it would have been so exciting to hear the music as it came out.
Let it Be was the first Beatles release where I was aware that it was the new Beatles song.

So can I go too?? And can we bring girls in miniskirts?

 

Steve,

I would love to go back into time and watch a recording session with Little Richard, Fats Domino, Miles Davis, Elvis Presley, Beach Boys, Phil Spector, George "Shadow" Morton, Roy Orbison, Beatles etc. Talk to the recording Engineers during their prime, see the vintage equipment perform in the old studios like Radio Recorders, Master Recorders, Gold Star, RCA Nashville, Columbia 52nd St. in New York and then have an ultimate heyday snapping up 45's and LP's made the old way.

Wow!, what a trip!

Bob

 

The time machiene better have a good size trunk. I'm bringing $500 for Lps.

Oh, and a round of drinks for everyone. I'm buyin'!

 

As soon as my mother bought the Bellamy Brothers's "Sons of The Sun" album and played it, and also Tom T. Hall's "Sneaky Snake," country music became the main type of music I wanted to hear and her 50's-60's rock and roll records when I heard some of the stuff, I liked it and did want to hear some of it as well. When my peers tried hard to get me into liking the hair metal music at the time, I told them I prefer country music. I grew up watching TNN & CMT and now prefer VH1 Country's variety over the same old same old top 40 on CMT although I still turn on CMT occasionally and I grew up listening to the only FM country station Bemidji ever had as a child but when I got older, I got tired of the same old same old top 40 country music on the radio and wanted to hear a station that not only played older country but also newer country, so I put up an antenna and discovered the Real Country syndicated format on a Grand Rapids, Minnesota affiliate and wanted to hear that station more than the local country station. A few years later, Bemidji did get a Real Country affiliate and I still listen to it to this day besides my tapes, CDs and vinyl.

 

When we get back to that Saturday in 1962, let's fly over to Hamburg to see the Beatles before their record contract. We could sign them up, Steve could record them and Sckott could buy a round of Lovenbrau!

 

Steve & Friends,

And one more concert--I saw the Doors play in a small high school auditorium in the Summer of 1967 before a small audience (maybe a 100 people at most)....very intimate...the sound was great...powerful...near studio quality. The Doors played for a full 2 hours and closed the set out their new hit single--Love Me Two Times. After Tullman's Led Zep concert this would be our final "live" music stop after we have toured the studios, watched the recording sessions, purchased as many 45's and LP's as our time machine would hold and after Steve has secretly made CD masters of vintage music on vintage equipment in "real time" for when we come back to 2002.

Bob

 

I was 7 when I heard the Dovells "You Can't Sit Down", and I couldn't. Can't even buy that one anymore

 

Easy,
February 1964 the Beatles on Sullivan. I'd never heard anything like that. I already loved music but I had only heard folks like Bobby Rydell and Pat Boone or my favorite Harry Belafonte. I was at Wallach's Music City the next day buying She Loves You. However, I stayed a big Belafonte fan too.

 

England, 1979: I am 10 years old and I am buying my first records - singles by "new wave" bands such as the Police and Squeeze. Neither of my parents had been into rock or pop music so the music I heard in the house as a child was mostly light classical, Greek music (my father is Cypriot) and what could only be described as easy listening.

One day that year a friend of mine at junior school lends me an LP called "With The Beatles" (the record belonged to his father). It is a mono record - I think this must be really old because my mother has records with "mono" on them.

I am immediately drawn to the picture of those partly eclipsed four faces on the front cover. I think the cover's great but what does it sound like? I get it home and I play it. I have a hand-me-down mono record player from the early 1960s (it had belonged to my mother). The needle drops down and the first song kicks in. I was totally blown away by what I heard. This was incredible! I play it again and again - so many times I wear the record out and I feel I can sing every song to myself in my sleep.


That was it for me...I had DISCOVERED the Beatles! That was a major turning point in my life and although I grew to appreciate the rest of their output, that album is the one Beatles record I will always have a soft spot for...my choice of Avatar for this forum was a foregone conclusion

 

The Beatles on Ed Sullivan was probably the most significant event. I was 11 years old at the time.

Before the Beatles, I was mostly surrounded by the music my parents played. A lot of Nat King Cole, Johnny Mathias, Frank Sinatra, an occasional Fats Domino, Frankie Lane, and Andy Williams.

The first live music I was exposed to was Mozart's Don Giovanni at the Santa Fe Opera in the mid-60's.

I also saw the Grand Old Opry perform when I was in 5th grade. All I remember from that show was Minnie Pearl's hat. I couldn't stand the music at the time. Now, I can't get enough country music, especially the old time stuff.

 

When I was 9......I watched the Movie La Bamba.......It looked so fun for everyone playing dancing...and it really affected me when I watched Valens, Holly and the Bopper die in the movie......ever since then I asked for a guitar......My mom bought me the The Best of Ritchie Valens, Buddy Holly "Legend" FTOMT, --Thank you Steve, Elvis Presley golden records....Those were my first 3 official records.....and right when I'd come home from school I'd put on the Buddy Holly "Legend", and I just fell in love with this guy named Buddy Holly.....I started wearing glasses trying to look like him......

and I would always read the caption on the back of the cover that Steve wrote,

"BUDDY HOLLY WAS YEARS AHEAD OF HIS TIME.

He was 21 years old when he first tasted real stardom.
By that time he had already written, performed and
helped produce most of the songs on this album. Quite a
feat!

Scanning the list of Buddy Holly compositions is like
scanning a capsule history of Rock. Elvis might have been
bigger, but Holly (in hindsight) had a far greater influence
on modern music.

Most of these selections were recorded by Norman
Petty at his little studio in Clovis, New Mexico. Because
all of the original master tapes were used in the making
of this album, you will hear musical subtleties and textures
never before heard on a Buddy Holly release.
Buddy Holly died in February, 1959. He was 22 years
old. He lives on in his music."


I took really took care of this record...no finger prints no scratches....and to this day it's in mint condition......

I played it on my parents Dennon Turntable.....Phase linear amps and Magnepan speakers almost everyday after school.......The sound was so big. We had a pretty big house with great accoustics and Buddy Holly sounded bigger than life.....It was such a religious experience..I thought he was the greatest ever......and I always figured Steve Hoffman had something to do with the great sound....
Steve, I guess I can say that I've been a fan of yours most of my life....


-Wes

 

Definitive moments:

Growing up in the late fifties and early sixtties hearing Elvis, Ray Charles, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, etc. on my mother's Hoffman tube console hi-fi defined my concept of music.

Hearing Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds for the first time in 1967 changed my whole concept of what music could be.

Seeing Bruce Springsteen perform "The Promise" alone on piano in 1978 changed my concept of what music should be.

Discovering this board (and another Hoffman - I feel like I've come full circle somehow) changed my concept of what music ought to sound like today.

 

Bob,

Are you proposing a supergroup??

Mike

 

1971, hearing the Stan Kenton Orchestra Live. What a large, loud ,sound. Stan was known for frying out brass players, especially trumpet players! i knew then, that if I wanted to keep playing trumpet, I'd better get my **** together!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Summer of 1977 seeing Yessongs at the Baronet theater on Topanga canyon. I it's a luggage store now.

 

How about Led Zep's first US appearance at Flushing Meadows..Queens, NY...First US Tour with opening act...Buddy Guy! What a show...Front row...