What Are Your Earliest Memories of Music?

[Brownian Motion]

My sister and I--age six and four respectively--had a pair of shellac 78s we were permitted to play without parental supervision. This would have been about 1951. One record was by the cheerful but grating "Mr Manners" and was titled Manners Can Be Fun [uh-huh]; the other was an 12" Asch recording of Leadbelly singing and playing his 12 string guitar on Bring Me a Little Water, Sylvie; Meetin' At the Building; Yellow Gal; Pick a Bail of Cotton; Take This Hammer; and Goodnight Irene.

When I was about 5 a copy of Dvorak's New World Symphony mysteriously appeared in our record pile; this was the first lp I had ever seen. I liked the music, although I found parts of it kind of spooky. Not too much later Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue also appeared, which I also really liked, but not too long after this my family acquired a television set and my musical education pretty much ground to a halt, temporarily at least.

[jazzbo]

My grandfather playing banjo and piano, my grandmother playing piano and organ, my dad's collection of Gershwin and swing lps and also corny stuff he had from HIS dad like the Hoosier Hot Shot 78s. . . . And then Philly soul on the radio when I was about nine to eleven.

[Dan Gould]

I was very much interested in top 40 AM radio growing up, spending a lot of time listening with Mom, like while she was doing laundry or sewing. According to her, the earliest song that I really really really liked was "Age of Aquarius" which would have been when I was about 4 years old.

Earliest recordings that I got as gifts were a few years later with Chicago's Greatest Hits and Beach Boys Endless Summer.

[Brandon Burke]

When I was very little I used to pay close attention to the sound of the dryer when my mother was doing laundry. More specifically, I would listen for patterns as items with metal parts (buttons, zippers, etc) hit the sides of the interior. At that age, that was music.

[Kari S]

My father playing the organ. I was about 5.

[sidewinder]

Apparently, I used to wander into the house next door when I was about 4 and bash away at the keys of the upright piano a la Cecil. The lady who lived in that house used to fume inwardly when I did this but bit her lip and didn't say anything - only in England !

A few years after that I got my first record - 'Sounds of aircraft from World War 2' (or something like that). Engine sounds of Messersmitts, Spitfires, Hurricanes, Heinkels - it had them all. It's shocking for me to think now that WW2 and the blitz was less than 20 years in the past, at that time ie. still recent history.

From that aircraft noise EP, it was an entirely logical step to collecting Mosaics and rare British jazz ( ).

Edited April 22, 2005 by sidewinder

[jazzbo]

Hey, I reportedly used to try to go into the bar on one corner of the block, The Red Rooster (still wonder if this is the place that apparently Tyner and Coltrane both appeared at) when I was very young. . . . And would be turned away.

I know it must have had one big ass jukebox. . . you could hear it a few houses away when the doors were all closed! Was good stuff.

[Larry Kart]

The Andrews Sisters recording of "On the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe," from 1946 when I was four; and around the same time, my maternal grandmother, who had a lovely contralto voice, singing "My Heart's in the Mountains/My Heart Is Not Here/My Heart's in the Mountains/My Heart Is Not Here" while she did the dishes (Robert Burns words, I believe, don't know who wrote the music, maybe Burns too); and "Funiculi, Funicula," which was used as the theme song of the radio soap opera "Just Plain Bill." I decided or discovered on my own little hook that I just hated that melody, and I still can't stand it.

[Larry Kart]

Sorry, that should have been:

My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here,

My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer.

A-chasing the wild deer, and following the roe;

My heart's in the Highlands, wherever I go....etc.

Perfect for doing the dishes.

[WD45]

Apparently, I used to wander into the house next door when I was about 4 and bash away at the keys of the upright piano a la Cecil. The lady who lived in that house used to fume inwardly when I did this but bit her lip and didn't say anything - only in England ! 

A few years after that I got my first record - 'Sounds of aircraft from World War 2' (or something like that). Engine sounds of Messersmitts, Spitfires, Hurricanes, Heinkels - it had them all. It's shocking for me to think now that WW2 and the blitz was less than 20 years in the past, at that time ie. still recent history.

From that aircraft noise EP, it was an entirely logical step to collecting Mosaics and rare British jazz (    ).

My early musical experiences too started with a similar LP. My dad would put on a recording of the 1963 NHRA Winternationals [drag racing] and put it on headphones. I loved that.

After that, it was mom playing the Bee Gees.

Edited April 22, 2005 by WD45

[Larry Kart]

More info:

Many of the works of the celebrated Scottish poet Robert Burns were written as lyrics to be sung to existing old tunes, in an effort to preserve them. In the aftermath of the Jacobite Rebellion, the English had forbidden the Scots to sing the old songs and the tunes were gradually being forgotten. Together with James Johnson, Burns endeavored to preserve these old melodies, by creating new lyrics--most often far superior poetically to the original. My Heart's in the Highlands  is one outstanding example of such a practice. It was written to be sung to the tune Failte na Miosg ("The Musket Salute.") According to Burns' own notes, "The first half stanza [of the chorus] is old; the rest is mine."

P.S. It's what the music does in the part of the chorus that Burns wrote (a simple but near-Schubertian move) that makes the song so potent.

[gslade]

My father listening to Jimmy Rodgers and Hank Williams

My mother listening to Soundtracks like My Fair Lady

and my older sisters who loved a new group called the Beatles

Edited April 22, 2005 by gslade

[Jazz Kat]

Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass

Baja Marimba Band

Sergio Mendes & Brasil 66

Chris Montez

Hugh Masekela

Chuck Mangione

(my earliest music. It's mostly my dad's kind of music. He had me listening to music by 3, which is also the age I started drumming.

[Jazzmoose]

My earliest memories are of a boxed set (of course!) of childrens records, sort of a 'musical history of America'. The memory is hazy, but it was, if I remember correctly, there were twelve. One was of marches, mostly Souza, one of Stephen Foster stuff, and on and on. Odds are, if I saw it now, I wouldn't recognize it, it's been so long.

[couw]

Waar ter wereld ik ook kwam

Zelden trof ik zo een bende

Als in't oude Amsterdam

Welgelegen aan het IJ

Wonen zij daar vrij en blij

first song text I remember besides the nursery rhymes.

[Harold_Z]

Sh Boom

Rags To Riches

That's Amore

Tweedlee Dee

Star Dust (Billy Ward version)

Jazz ?

Louis on Ed Sullivan

Ella on Ed Sullivan

When I was very young (under 10) at a family New Year's Eve gathering:

Ugly Chile - George Brunis

Baby Won't You Please Come Home - Wild Bil Davison

That was the jazz epiphany.

[Christiern]

I heard a lot of Mozart and Beethoven when I was a little kid. When I was 6, I used to sit on the floor with a wind-up portable gramophone and listen to records by Victor Sylvester and his Orchestra, Greta Keller, and that kind of music. When I became old enough to buy my own records, I went for classical, with baroque composers as favorites.

My taste in pop music was common: Dinah Shore, Andrews Sisters, Merry Macs, etc., but around 1947-48, when I was 16-17, I happened across a Bessie Smith recording being played on the Danish radio jazz club. My listening habits have not been the same since.

Lonson, I just to hang out in a Red Rooster, it was a small, two-steps-down place in Harlem and it was a place frequented by Adam Clayton Powell--could that have been around the corner from where you lived?

[ghost of miles]

More info:

Many of the works of the celebrated Scottish poet Robert Burns were written as lyrics to be sung to existing old tunes, in an effort to preserve them.

Larry,

Is that the case with "If a body meet a body comin' through the rye?" That's the song a kid is singing which Holden Caulfield mis-hears in CATCHER IN THE RYE.

I mostly remember transistor radios circa 1970... first song I remember hearing from a couple years later (Jim Croce's "Bad Bad Leroy Brown"). And Three Dog Night's "Joy to the World," one that I liked a lot. My mother playing the piano and singing... and our singing in a first-grade music class, songs that I've long forgotten (one with a verse of "On my bike I go riding along, on a clear or cloudy day"). Also, for some odd reason, the Rolling Stones' "As Tears Go By"... I remember that one making an impression early on.

Edited April 23, 2005 by ghost of miles

[Jazz Kat]

My earliest memories are of a boxed set (of course!) of childrens records, sort of a 'musical history of America'. The memory is hazy, but it was, if I remember correctly, there were twelve. One was of marches, mostly Souza, one of Stephen Foster stuff, and on and on. Odds are, if I saw it now, I wouldn't recognize it, it's been so long.

Could they perhaps be Golden Records?

[rostasi]

I heard a lot of Mozart and Beethoven when I was a little kid...

Actually, Chris, I think, is responsible for a very cherished early memory that I'll

never get out of my head for the rest of my days.

That is of seeing Lonnie Liston Smith on TV performing

"Let Us Go Into the House of the Lord."

That regular TV jazz program was something that I lived for every week.

Have often run that performance over in my head...

Considering the nature of my upbringing, this whole thread could become a book for me!

I noticed that most answers, so far, have not actually involved a jazz music upbringing.

Is this a correct assumption that jazz wasn't played in your (various) homes?

---

Now playing: Art Pepper - Zenobia

[Christiern]

You bring back memories. Thank you, Rostasi.

[rostasi]

You bring back memories. Thank you, Rostasi.

Oh, a big Thank you!

My world stopped for those weekly programs!

(broadcast, I think, on WTTW).

---

Now playing: Lonnie Smith - Too Damm Hot

Edited April 23, 2005 by rostasi

[Larry Kart]

Those are Burns' words

Coming thro' the rye, poor body,

Coming thro' the rye,

She draiglet a' her petticoatie

Coming thro' the rye.

O, Jenny's a' wat, poor body;

Jenny's seldom dry;

She draiglet a' her petticoatie

Coming thro' the rye.

Gin a body meet a body

Coming thro' the rye,

Gin a body kiss a body -

Need a body cry?

Gin a body meet a body

Coming thro' the glen,

Gin a body kiss a body -

Need the warld ken?

but I don't know if the tune is borrowed or his.

No jazz was played in my home, except by me when the time came, but the way my mother listened to classical music (mostly on the radio) when I was kid -- the way it seemed to sway her and speak to her, the way she homed in on its essence without any pretence -- was a nice living lesson.

[Jazzmoose]

My earliest memories are of a boxed set (of course!) of childrens records, sort of a 'musical history of America'.  The memory is hazy, but it was, if I remember correctly, there were twelve.  One was of marches, mostly Souza, one of Stephen Foster stuff, and on and on.  Odds are, if I saw it now, I wouldn't recognize it, it's been so long.

Could they perhaps be Golden Records?

I don't think so, but at this point, who knows?

[brownie]

The first music I can remember came from some of the 78s that were played by my parents after the

end of WWII. Some French singers (mostly Yves Montand, Edith Piaf...). Then when the first long-playing

albums were released, my ears were ready for classical music. Some of the LPs I remember were the Dinu Lipatti

recordings of Chopin's Preludes, some Rachmaninoff, some Bach.

By the time I was 12, I was tuned into jazz and my life was never the same after that...