Until I reached the age of 8, my musical exposure was mainly limited by whatever my parents played and that wasn't very often because Dad was working and so was Mum too busy cooking and cleaning and looking after my baby brother and sisters.
So if Mum did like a song like 'Singing the Blues' by Guy Mitchell
which I liked because I liked whistling, then I heard it quite often when she played her 78's.
Another one that I loathed was Paul Anka's 1957 song 'Diana'
which she liked because one of my baby sisters is named Diana.
My first steps towards salvation came from Radio Luxembourg and a BBC Light program called 'Smokey Mountain Jamboree'
https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/612ffc01d9904850844d479b12b226fa
So far so good but not that stirring! My first friend from school, Colin, turned me onto Buddy Holly and after that the fuse was lit and we spoke about what we'd heard and liked or disliked.
In those days, 1959 on, record shops had listening booths where you could hear a record played before you bought it, or more often not. So that was where we went every pocket money Friday to sample the wares.
I cringe now to remember my first 3 45's I bought but what the hell, they were:-
Robot Man by Connie Francis
The Doctor Who theme by the Radiophonic Workshop
My old mans a dustman by Lonnie Donegan
It was skiffle that got me started on wanting to make my own music because you didn't need any expensive instruments. A bass was a tea chest with a broom handle and a single string, the percussion was thimbles on a washboard and maybe someone had a banjo or ukalele.
That phase didn't last long but the next attempt found me armed with a VOX bass guitar and 50watt amplifier which I traded a damn good racing bike for because I was now infatuated with the sound of Duane Eddy and didn't know that he played a semi acoustic and loads of echo. So that attempt at musical fame was squashed and anyway I couldn't play the guitar to save my life, so I tuned the strings to an open chord and just blocked them and went from fret to fret like that.
We lasted for exactly one gig when we were paid 50quid to go away! It was at a rather disreputable private party with all sorts of things happening thanks to a radio producer from Macao called Johnny and his bodyguard Judas who was the one that paid us off to forget anything we may have seen or heard.
As we trudged off feeling pretty damn lucky the police cars were just turning up but they paid us no attention.
Its really proving impossible to recount my musical influences in a linear manner because I have not mentioned the stomp by bands like The Piltdown Men nor have I mentioned Elvis, Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochrane so eventually I'll need to append a play list!
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