May 142010
For more recent entrants to the Halls of Rock, here’s your chance to share. Don’t worry: there’s no ulterior motive in asking this question, but someone may decide to take your answer in an unexpected direction.
This post initially appeared 9/22/07.
This one would not count.
Surely you all remember the first single or album you bought as a kid. For many of us, it was probably something in the pop-rock category. Excluding children’s records – whether from your own childhood or your own children’s childhood- what’s the first non-pop/rock record you remember buying?
It was kind of a big deal in my family to get any kind of mother/daughter time because mum was usually working and I have two other sibs, and one day she took me out (just me!) to the mall when I was 10, and called off school for me. We had a day together, and I remember I was begging for World Machine by Level 42… it was a big deal to have her all to myself that day and to get that album, and be able to miss school for no apparent reason other than she just wanted to spend time with me alone.
I guess non- pop rock when I was making my own decisions, The Smiths though… Queen Is Dead. First album I memorized from song to song –
The Smiths are not pop-rock?
For some reason one of my first album purchases was Roger Miller’s greatest hits, which must have driven my parents crazy when I played it constantly.
BigSteve’s right, Sally C: The Smiths are not what I had in mind when I asked for your first non-pop/rock album. I’m thinking things like jazz, classical, country, world, showtunes…
I bought the Coltrane record entitled Coltrane and BB King Live at the Cook County Jail in the same day at some long gone crappy DC record store. The records were both on sale cheap and the cover of the BB King one reminded me of the industrial parts of my own city. Fall 1980–I was a first semester freshman at GW.
This is a good question. Like Mwall, I don’t recall buying a non-pop/rock record until freshman year. It may have been Coltrane’s Meditaions, which I found for a lot less than the album I wanted to buy first, Live at the Village Vanguard. I still like Meditations a lot, a lot more than the highly touted A Love Supreme, which I’ve always felt suffers greatly owing to its singing section.
I bought some orchestra doing something by Liszt. It was on a classicla label that was supposed to be known for sound quality (Maybe Telarc?). I had just seen the movie Lisztomania (yes, that was me that bought the ticket!) and I guess Rick Wakeman pissing in the fire had inspired me. I played one side of it. I kept trying but I finally just gave up and am happily listening to lo fi noise.
Lisztomania…now there’s a film that doesn’t get discussed enough:)
I was in tenth grade when I found (what I later realized was) a first-pressing of Miles Davis’ SOMEDAY MY PRINCE WILL COME for a quarter at a yard sale. It took me until my college years to really warm up to it but the title song was a tune I was very familiar with so it gave me a very grounded idea of how jazz players can transform a song.
Roger Miller’s Greatest Hits may have been my first purchase as well, way back upon it’s original release. My love and appreciation of Roger Miller, Chet Baker, and Frank Sinatra are all things I owe to my dad.
“still like Meditations a lot, a lot more than the highly touted A Love Supreme, which I’ve always felt suffers greatly owing to its singing section.” – Monsieur Mod
It’s barely even singing, it’s just a brief chanting part! Man, you grade hard! I know I cut across the grain on this but I’m always glad when a jazz song has a singer take a verse or (better yet) some brief vocalizing from an instrumentalist (I’m thinking of Mingus’ war whoops in particular). A few words can really put a stamp on a song and help me remember the title, especially with jazz, where you’re expected to connect some abstract word to a wordless melody (bad jazz title “Reflections”).
What Buskirk sed. The two minutes of clusy but heartfelt singing knocks significant points off its score to place it somewhere below Meditations. I like Meditations, but it just doesn’t hit the heights of A Love Supreme. Sometimes you need to throw that rulebook in the trash and see what’s plain as the nose on your face.
Hey, I just took one little knock on A Love Supreme. What I really like about Meditations is the long, dual bass solo. I still say the chanting segment, though, takes me out of the “moment.” It’s got a Roger Corman movie vibe to it that I don’t like to associate with Coltrane.
Sorry, sometimes when I write so fast/reply so fast, I miss the point entirely and end up writing something goofy… non-pop rock that I had to have: Sarah Vaughan (Sassy Swings Again) neat cover and wonderful music – purchased at the Vinyl Museum in Toronto. I usually listen to it when I want to be calmed down or when I’m feeling down. That’s not very long ago – maybe 1998 when I made a trip to Toronto with a few friends. Vinyl Museum isn’t around anymore, but it used to be right near this place called Honest Ed’s that isn’t there anymore either – it was a huge bargain store built like a casino with two floors, neon lights and everything… One thing we always found kitschy and weird about buying from Vinyl Museum – all albums came with a religious quote stamped on the plastic sleeve cover of each LP.
My ass Honest Ed’s isn’t there anymore! I was in there a week ago yesterday!
Ed Mirvish did die a couple months ago, though.
I too have many strange and wondrous goodies from Peter Dunn’s Vinyl Museum. Not only was there a bible verse on every sleeve, each purchase was slipped into a bag that had a Xeroxed page from the Bible in it. But it was utterly random, so you might end up with, like, a random page from Leviticus with instructions on how to wash a dead body or something.
I swear to God I tried to visit it and someone told me they tore it down! That place is crazy, though. I’ll have to take a trip next time. They have the weirdest people looking for stuff in there.
Yourself and myself excluded, of course;) hee hee
Hank! Changed my life.
Leon Redbone – from Branch to Branch
Muddy Waters and Johnny Winter – Hard Again and King Bee
Howlin’ Wolf – the London Sessions
I can’t remember which came first but they were all around the same time.
Probably one of those cheeseball fusion jazz dudes from the 70s whose technique was meant to amaze me as a teenage guitar player. Might even have been the dreaded Al DiMeola! (Shudder.)
There seems to be a pattern here. Not completely sure what the first non-rock purchase was, but one of my 8th grade teachers turned me on to jazz and I checked out A Love Supreme from the public library. It made a huge impact on me and set me off into the world of jazz. Even after all this time, the record still gets to me, certainly including the chanting section!
I always joke that I walked funny for a week after I heard Love Supreme the first time. It was a life-changing moment for me, but I was already in college by the time it made its way into my life.
My first non rock purchase was probably Hank Jr. or something in the 80s. I don’t remember it being a particulalry big deal, though. It wasn’t like I was really thinking, “Hey! This isn;t rock.” Of course, Hank is sort of on that line anyway. So does he even count?
I went through a SERIOUS Lloyd Webber phase in high school. That was back in my band nerd days. I can own up to it now.
TB
Motown’s Greatest Hits/Kenny Rodgers The Gambler.
They came with 4 other cassettes for just a penny.
TV Guide.
I was 6.
I am surprised there has been no comedy albums mentioned, there were a few million-sellers in the late 70s / early 80s. The oldest one on my shelves is “Let’s Get Small” by Steve Martin.
For music only, it would be one of the classical movie soundtracks I would study to: “Empire of the Sun” by John Williams or “Koyaanisqatsi” by Philip Glass.
I did have “Coward of the County” on 45. Again, though, alot of that country stuff was pretty popular. I don’t think I distinguished it from rock.
TB
I’ve resisted answering this one because I’m too damned old to remember. While I suspect it was a comedy album for me, I can’t remember what was given as a present or what I might have bought with birthday/lawnmowing/allowance-type money around that time. I know I bought Monty Python Live At City Center in 1976, but it could have been a two-album compilation of radio comedy that I got at a rummage sale for a quarter or something. I’m guessing that came first.
A Preservation Hall Jazz Band LP when I was eight or so. My dad would always take me to see them when they came through town.
Was called something like “The Kings of Swing” and was a best of big band. At the time I didn’t realize that the band leaders on this compilation were are the white guys, Tommy Dorsey et al.
It wasn’t until college that I discovered Duke Ellington who, with few exceptions, made all those other guys sound like turds. Still spin Duke to this day.