EARLY MUSIC INFLUENCES
As soon as I was old enough to play music for myself on the old family Zenith console,
I had the choice of these records:
I had the choice of these records:
45 RPM SINGLES
It Makes No Difference Now / Molly Darling (Eddy Arnold)
Don’t Blame It On Me / Bo Weevil (Fats Domino)
Cool Water/ Tumbling Tumbleweeds (Sons Of The Pioneers)
78 RPM RECORDS (singles)
Buttons and Bows / Daddy-O (Dinah Shore)
There’s A Big Rock In The Road / I’m Gonna Be Boss From Now On (Bob Wills & Texas Playboys)
The Happy Wanderer / From Your Lips (Frank Weir-saxophone)
Steel Guitar Rag / Panhandle Rag (Jerry Byrd)
78 RPM RECORDS (classical)
Haydn ‘Surprise’ Symphony #94
Haydn ‘Drum Roll’ Symphony #103
Master Of The Double Bass - Serge Koussevitzky
When the turntable died on the Zenith, I removed the tuner/amp from the cabinet and hooked it to a bare speaker. It looked like a collection of vacuum tubes, wires, and a transformer. I lost the knobs, but the bare pot shafts worked just fine. I placed the radio next to my bed and I was able to pick up distant stations at night with the help from a rigged antennae made of bare wire hooked to the window screen. I listened to popular radio from larger cities like Boston and Chicago, with jazz and classical sprinkled in from stations as far away as Canada.
Early on, I was entranced when late at night I heard JS Bach’s solo Cello Suite #1 played by Pierre Fournier. Many years later as an adult, I tracked down that very recording (now on CD). A few years later, I remember hearing Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘Sounds Of Silence’ on WBZ in Boston months before it was in rotation at my local stations. I was baffled when the the song sounded different than when I first heard it from Boston. I soon figured out that electric 12 string guitar, bass, and drums had been added by the time the song circulated as a hit.
It Makes No Difference Now / Molly Darling (Eddy Arnold)
Don’t Blame It On Me / Bo Weevil (Fats Domino)
Cool Water/ Tumbling Tumbleweeds (Sons Of The Pioneers)
78 RPM RECORDS (singles)
Buttons and Bows / Daddy-O (Dinah Shore)
There’s A Big Rock In The Road / I’m Gonna Be Boss From Now On (Bob Wills & Texas Playboys)
The Happy Wanderer / From Your Lips (Frank Weir-saxophone)
Steel Guitar Rag / Panhandle Rag (Jerry Byrd)
78 RPM RECORDS (classical)
Haydn ‘Surprise’ Symphony #94
Haydn ‘Drum Roll’ Symphony #103
Master Of The Double Bass - Serge Koussevitzky
When the turntable died on the Zenith, I removed the tuner/amp from the cabinet and hooked it to a bare speaker. It looked like a collection of vacuum tubes, wires, and a transformer. I lost the knobs, but the bare pot shafts worked just fine. I placed the radio next to my bed and I was able to pick up distant stations at night with the help from a rigged antennae made of bare wire hooked to the window screen. I listened to popular radio from larger cities like Boston and Chicago, with jazz and classical sprinkled in from stations as far away as Canada.
Early on, I was entranced when late at night I heard JS Bach’s solo Cello Suite #1 played by Pierre Fournier. Many years later as an adult, I tracked down that very recording (now on CD). A few years later, I remember hearing Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘Sounds Of Silence’ on WBZ in Boston months before it was in rotation at my local stations. I was baffled when the the song sounded different than when I first heard it from Boston. I soon figured out that electric 12 string guitar, bass, and drums had been added by the time the song circulated as a hit.
We had several musical instruments laying around the house: A steel string acoustic guitar, a laptop steel guitar, a violin, a Kay upright bass, and an old-style "potato-bug" mandolin that hung on the wall. My father and mother met in orchestra at Parkersburg High School where dad played bass and my mother the violin. My dad also played bass in the Rhythm Kings (a local dance/big band), and he sang and played his Kay f-hole archtop guitar for us children at bedtime. The bedtime songs I remember: On Top Of Old Smokey, Red River Valley, and Get Along Home Cindy.
