Developing your musical taste

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Aha! Thanks, Goldberg. For about 55 years I knew the popular song "Windy" by Paul Gayten (of New Orleans) was based on a South African song. Now because of you and Youtube I hear that Gayten's recording was a direct imitation of "Tom Hark."

(I may have written this sometime before.) As a boy I loved rock-and-roll music, the real stuff, as on for ex. Atlantic records. When I read hype about this new white performer Elvis Presley, and then finally heard his first record, I was convinced that he would be the death of rock-and-roll. I was right.

Shirley and Lee’s hit ‘Let the good times roll’ – another I didn’t know came from New Orleans – also hit me hard. So did a South African recording, ‘Tom Hark’ by Elias and his Zig Zag Jive Flutes which I think made #1 in Britain.

There are quite a lot of rips of 'Tom Hark' in different places. I've heard a Ska version, several South African versions, too, not unnaturally. Here's one, probably from 1958.

It's from this LP

MG

[BillF]

This is closer to what I remember, but still not quite it!

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

This is closer to what I remember, but still not quite it!

That's the one I was talking about!

I dunno what you're talking about

MG

[BillF]

This is closer to what I remember, but still not quite it!

That's the one I was talking about!

I dunno what you're talking about

MG

It's different from the clip you posted in #26.

[robertoart]

Never knew that about Windy. Doesn't The Lion Sleeps Tonight have a similar backstory.

[jazzbo]

I remember my whole "dorm" (which was a big room split by a stairway rising to the back and with four bunkbed cubicles with two boys in a cubicle, not totally enclosed, on each side) stayed up illicitly and listened to all of "Abbey Road" being played on the radio, that was a trip..

I remember hearing the whole of Abbey Road on the radio too, just before release. In Cornwall, though, not Africa.

You know, as we're about the same age, I thought that was likely the case.

[A Lark Ascending]

I remember my whole "dorm" (which was a big room split by a stairway rising to the back and with four bunkbed cubicles with two boys in a cubicle, not totally enclosed, on each side) stayed up illicitly and listened to all of "Abbey Road" being played on the radio, that was a trip..

I remember hearing the whole of Abbey Road on the radio too, just before release. In Cornwall, though, not Africa.

You know, as we're about the same age, I thought that was likely the case.

Bet you saw the worldwide 'All You Need Is Love' in '67 too. I was in Singapore when it was broadcast.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

This is closer to what I remember, but still not quite it!

That's the one I was talking about!

I dunno what you're talking about

MG

It's different from the clip you posted in #26.

Yes - that was supposed to be one a bit like it.

MG

Never knew that about Windy. Doesn't The Lion Sleeps Tonight have a similar backstory.

Yes - the Weavers recorded it as 'Wimoweh' in the early fifties. But it's a traditional tune from South Africa. I think its real title may be 'Mbube' - I had a recording of it by Miriam Makeba under that title in the early sixties.

MG

I remember my whole "dorm" (which was a big room split by a stairway rising to the back and with four bunkbed cubicles with two boys in a cubicle, not totally enclosed, on each side) stayed up illicitly and listened to all of "Abbey Road" being played on the radio, that was a trip..

I remember hearing the whole of Abbey Road on the radio too, just before release. In Cornwall, though, not Africa.

You know, as we're about the same age, I thought that was likely the case.

Bet you saw the worldwide 'All You Need Is Love' in '67 too. I was in Singapore when it was broadcast.

Even I saw that

I also remember Ronnie Scott's comment afterwards - something like 'there's real musical intelligence in that', to which I always mentally append 'my own'.

MG

[robertoart]

I am seven years younger than you Big Beat Steve.

I started listening to the Classic hard rock bands about a decade after their heyday thanks to a friends Aunties record collection.

But my very first musical memories revolve around a record player something like this,

I don't really have any memories before a time I ever had this little record player, so I think Mum and Dad must have had this in my room with me since before I could remember.

My own Aunty gave me her old 45's, mainly early 70's Neil Diamond singles and some Beatles, Carol King etc.

She also gave me 45's of these, which I still have. And I played them all to death.

My mum was a singer in her youth (in the 40's and early 50's, so music was always an important part of life.

One of mums cherished memories is of being chosen to be in the chorus for a visiting Italian Opera Company in the late 40's.

When I started learning to play Jazz I hoped mum would know some of the Standards, but alas no.

It was all 'Bluebird Of Happiness' kind of stuff.

She did have this in her collection though,

but also unfortunately these, which I can vividly recall,

Very first memories also include The Beatles cartoons on Tv, and simultaneously, what must have been B&W promo clips cut from the film Let It Be. I couldn't reconcile the Cartoon Beatles, and the 'real life' Beatles with beards and long hair.

So music was always the most important thing in my life since I can remember, and I devoured everything I could on TV and through my little transistor radio. I also fondly remember telecasts in B&W of our own Woodstock - called Sunbury. And the outrage my dear uneducated parents felt when they saw this man (Jeff Duff from Kush) do his Jazz meets David Bowie performance. I can still hear them express their indignation at him 'performing on stage in his underwear. they knew how much I loved music though, so they put up with it.

Edited March 10, 2013 by freelancer

[jazzbo]

I remember my whole "dorm" (which was a big room split by a stairway rising to the back and with four bunkbed cubicles with two boys in a cubicle, not totally enclosed, on each side) stayed up illicitly and listened to all of "Abbey Road" being played on the radio, that was a trip..

I remember hearing the whole of Abbey Road on the radio too, just before release. In Cornwall, though, not Africa.

You know, as we're about the same age, I thought that was likely the case.

Bet you saw the worldwide 'All You Need Is Love' in '67 too. I was in Singapore when it was broadcast.

No, I pretty much was without TV from late '66 to late -71.

Edited March 10, 2013 by jazzbo