The really sad thing that I’ve realized in doing this project is that such a large portion of the music that I listened to and liked up to this point is simply lost to time and the weakness of the vinyl medium. Those early Disney records are not likely to be re-released on CD. This is a shame as I’d really be interested in buying some of those to give them a fresh listen now. If you scour the internet, you might find where somebody has ripped the album to mp3, and I suppose that is better than nothing. I’d still prefer pristine remastered CDs. Fortunately, most of the music going forward from this point has been released on CD in some manner. Enter Pop Music.

As I approached six, a few things all seemed to happen at once. We moved, I could successfully operate the record player and I could read. It all seemed to happen overnight. I think that the floor plan of our new house made the stereo accessible. It was just there, in the living room where I could get to it. And in the end table cabinet next to it was hundreds of records. The result was my sudden exposure to pop music. As we have seen, I have been a music appreciator since very early childhood. I feel that I owe this to my mother who had a fondness for pop music. It was the early 1970’s and she had amassed a rather large collection of hit singles on 45 rpm records. There were a few dozen LP albums, but the bulk was 45 singles. Mom listened to what was the equivalent of Top 40 radio on the old AM stations. This was at the dawn of FM radio when it seemed that the only thing you could find on FM was elevator music. I’ve always referred to this segment of my musical evolution as “The Scratchy 45 Days”.

The Scratchy 45 Days was a major influence in my musical evolution. I was influenced by my mother’s record collection which was influenced by the radio. She had some favorite artists like Neil Diamond and Andy Williams, but her records covered so many of the artists of the era. Granted they all more or less fell in that top 40 genre, but the variety of artists and songs introduced me to so much great music. Since she liked Neil Diamond so much, there were several Neil Diamond records. To this day, Neil Diamond is one of my favorites of this era. When I hear Sweet Caroline, I can feel what it was like to be young in early 1970’s and it ain’t bad.

The Scratchy 45 Days era lasted until somewhere between 3rd and 4th grade. As we explore mom’s old 45’s I’m not going to pay too much attention to chronology. I could try to go through her records in my mind and try to share them with you by release date but that would take too much effort. Just imagine a big cabinet full of records that are stacked in no particular order. We’re just going to grab a few and check them out.

My sisters and I used to take turns playing DJ. We’d sort through the stacks of records and pick out our favorites then set them into stacks of 7. Our record player was one of those that would allow you to stack 7 records on the spindle at once and at the end of record the next one would automatically drop down and play but you could not load more than 7. As I write that I wonder if that 7 was established as a result of reading the instructions or trial and error. It also seems weird that I’d have to explain that mechanism but it simply hasn’t existed in the mainstream for so long. I remember when my daughter was 3 or 4. She got a Barbie doll and accessories for her birthday. This would have been around 1996. the accessories were a microwave, a portable CD player, a “boom box” and a record player. I asked what each one was and she got them all but the record player. She had never seen one. I don’t know that she ever has even at 19. The last time I had a turntable hooked up to anything was November of 1988 but I’ll get to that later. Don’t let me forget.

I still play “DJ”. I always have. The format has changed through the years. I used to make mix tapes, then CD compilations and now the digital media player shuffle. Even here, as I share My Musical Evolution, I’m playing DJ for you. Here’s another of mom’s early favorites. I vaguely remember mom going to see Sonny & Cher live when they came to town way back in the day.

Next:My Musical Evolution – Part 9 Diving Into Mom’s Records