My First Record Album

My First Record Album

I liked listening to music when I was very young but the music I was hearing was the music of my parents or my Aunt. It was around 1957 when Rock-n-Roll began to enter my life. I was maybe 8 when I started hearing a few Rock-n-Roll songs. Rock 'n' Roll wasn't played at my house and the radio stations my parents listened to never played it. My initial exposure to Rock-n-Roll came through the courtesy of others, namely, my friends older siblings who were sometimes listening to it while I was there. The first Rock-n-Roll songs I remember hearing were Danny and the Juniors' “At The Hop”, Elvis' “Hound Dog” and “Heartbreak Hotel”, and Bobby Darrin's “Splish Splash”. I'm sure there must have been others but I specifically remember those. I also remember hearing David Seville's “Witch Doctor” and Sheb Wooley's “Purple People Eater” but those were more cutesy pop songs rather than real Rock-n-Roll. I heard all these songs at other people's (OP) houses mostly from the radio. This was before I owned a radio so I was depending on OP radios and the stations they were listening to. Elvis, of course, was the biggest name. Everybody knew who he was, even me. I also knew of Bobby Darrin, Ricky Nelson, Chuck Berry, and The Everly Brothers. I knew Bobby Darrin from my friend Jeff's older brother. I knew of Ricky Nelson due to the TV show, “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet”. Don't rightly remember where I first heard Chuck and the Brothers but it must have been somewhere other my house. I eventually discovered the TV shows “American Bandstand” and “Your Hit Parade” and that's when I really started tuning into Rock-n-Roll songs and started dropping the music of my parents. My memories of “Your Hit Parade” are dominated by the Platters' hit “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes”. That must have been a current hit when I began watching the show. Each week the show would play the top hits of the week. In my memory “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes” was done every week. I know that couldn't have been true but that's my memory of that show and whenever I hear that song I think of “Your Hit Parade”.

I'm not sure of the year, but I think I got my own record player in 1960 for Christmas. I had started buying my own 45s (singles) around that time. Some of the first 45s I bought included “Goodbye Cruel World' by James Darren (I heard him sing the song on an episode of “The Donna Reed Show”), The Tokens' “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”, “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” by The Shirelles, and “The Twist” by Chubby Checker. “The Twist” swept the nation in 1960. It was actually a cover of a song originally released by Hank Ballard on the R&B charts. Chubby Checker's real name was Earnest Evans. The Chubby Checker name was suggested by Chubby's wife as a parody for Fats Domino, a popular recording artist at that time. (I'm thinking they either had a very solid marriage or a very short one.) Chubby's version of the “The Twist” was so big that it climbed up the charts a second time in 1962. They eventually played 30 second twist lessons featuring Chubby on TV. I remember watching them with my Mom in our living room and trying to learn all the moves.

But before all that, I purchased an album entitled “Here We Go Again” by The Kingston Trio in 1959. I was 10 and it was the first album I purchased, in fact, it was my first music purchase of any kind. This was before I had my own phonograph. I bought the album with my own money. It cost less than $2. Shortly after we'd moved to Rollingwood, construction started on the property behind our house on the other side of Walt Whitman Road. That construction turned out to be a brand new grocery store called King Kullen. It was there that I purchased that Kingston Trio album. I was at King Kullen with my mom and I noticed a bin of albums. There were probably less than 20 albums total, but I had enough money and I was anxious to start collecting my own music. There was no Elvis, no Chuck Berry, no Buddy Holly, no Jerry Lee Lewis. Most of the albums were music adults would listen to like Perry Como, Doris Day, or Vic Damone. There may even have been a Mitch Miller sing-along album there. But there were a couple of folk albums that were reasonably close to what I was interested in even if they weren't actual Rock-n-Roll records. That was probably a good thing since the only place I was going to be able to play anything would be on my parents' hi-fi system in our living room. My parents were not fans of Rock-n-Roll and my Dad in particular was a rather vocal critic. When he heard a Rock-n-Roll song his common comment was “Has that guy been in pain long?” Consequently I would not have been allowed to play any of that kind of music when he was around. One of the two folk records was a Kingston Trio album. It wasn't that I was much of a Kingston Trio fan, but it seemed to be the best one out of the small selection of albums I was looking through. I knew the The Kingston Trio from their hit “Tom Dooley”. I convinced my mother to let me buy the album even though I didn't recognize a single song on it. I took it home and played it, probably over and over and my Dad never said anything negative about it.

I don't have the album any more and don't know what happened to it. Maybe an old girlfriend or roommate has it. Maybe my sister Babs has it as I used to sometimes trade records with her. Usually the trade happened because she had a record I really wanted and I would offer her multiple records of mine that I was no longer listening to just to get the one record I wanted from her. I once traded my entire 45 collection to her for a single record album. Being the oldest I always figured that no matter what I traded to her I could somehow get it back if I wanted. Many years later I decided I wanted to tape a bunch of my old 45's but I was now living in California and she was still living on Long Island. I was visiting my mom who also was still living on Long Island, in the house I grew up in. While visiting her I asked Babs if I could borrow back my 45's. She was justifiably leery and told me I could take them to mom's house but not back to California. Well, once I got them back to my mom's and played a few I realized I was not going to have time to record the songs at mom's so I decided I'd just take them back to California anyway. I planned to bring them back to her on my next visit. Once back in California I taped all the songs I wanted. I sent them back to NY with an old neighbor, Bruce, who was out in California visiting my brother. I wonder if she even has those old 45's anymore but it's probably best I don't bring it up, so “Babs, please don't read this paragraph”.

Anyway that Kingston Trio album started a music buying addiction that continues on to this day. I had over 150 45s when I stopped buying them which was shortly after the Beatles hit. I'd purchased over 500 albums before I switched to CD's and I probably have 700 or 800 CD's. Now, most of my music is on my computer and in my iTunes account. At this time I'm closing in on 30,000 songs in that account and it's all my mother's fault or is it King Kullen's? Just maybe it's The Kingston Trio's fault although I never bought another Kingston Trio album...