Who influenced your music taste most

[Smokey]

I think for most music lovers, there is probably some one in their life that influence their taste in music when there were younger. The person that had profound effect could be their family members, neighbor or even a DJ in the radio.

For me, I must say my older brother who is 15 year older had the most influence that shaped my music taste when I was younger in late 60’s and early 70’s. He mostly listen to pop rock from Stevei Wonder to Springteen to Joe Cocker and when he got married, he gave me all of his LPs. And that is how it all got started :)

What is your story?

[thekid]

I'd have to say it was my older brother as well. He managed to get a radio from my folks back in 68. Our rooms were next to each other and from the heating grate I could hear tunes from CKLW. From there he managed to put together a small stereo set-up and would play all types of music well into the night. He outfitted our old station wagon with an 8-track player and a bunch of Jensen speakers. The car along with his 8-track tapes collection were handed down to me and I was king of the road. Fond memories of playing "Frampton Comes Alive" while laying back with a date or two on the folded down back seat.....

[Smokey]

Fond memories of playing "Frampton Comes Alive" while laying back with a date or two on the folded down back seat.....

That is too much information :D

You mentioned CKLW. That must be from Canada. Do you also remember WLS AM 890 from Chicago? That was the coolest station back in 70's which played the best rock music.

[kexodusc]

Hmmm, probably friends...I had a few music teachers that tuned me into some piano and cello specific stuff, that led me to search for other music, but just hearing new music my friends were listening too was a big part of it.

Acutally that's one of the first questions I ask of new acquaintances...if I ask what they listen to for music and they Lady Gaga, I know to wrap up the conversation pretty quick.

[poppachubby]

Growing up my house was full of music. My parents are both staunch fans of several genres. This gave me a good base of soul, pop, opera, jazz, reggae and rock.

It wasn't until I was in grade 4, my friend's older brother had Metallica Ride the Lightning on cassette. We listened to that thing non stop. That really opened up my mind to what was possible outside of conventional music. That kicked off the journey for me...

[Hyfi]

I would say my 3 older brothers and something different from each.

My oldest brother played Simon & Garfunkle to bar room blues like Thorogood, who used to play in local bars near me before he was well known.

Second oldest brother was more Zappa and Allman Bros stuff.

3rd oldest was more head music, Uriah Heap, 10 Years After, Bloodwyn Pig and the likes.

My oldest brother was building Heathkits, Dynaco, and Hafler gear on the kitchen table when I was little and both olders used the gear with speakers like the old AR5s.

I picked up my own stuff out of being exposed to the rest.

[MasterCylinder]

Me and my buddies were among the numerous and common followers of the British invasion.............1964...........Beatles, Stones, Kinks, Hermits, Animals, Dave Clark, etc............my friends took guitar lessons and I bought and learned the drum set.....then in the Summer of 67, the world changed when me and my buddies got DISRAELI GEARS, ARE YOU EXPERIENCED, ABSOLUTELY FREE and SGT. PEPPERS all in the same month.............what a year !.................amazing.............and we've never been the same since.

[ForeverAutumn]

As a young child my mother always had music playing. A lot of it was opera and classical, which didn’t appeal to me at such a young age (I still don’t like opera), but I always had age appropriate kiddie albums to listen to. I had a turntable in my bedroom and Mom would put an album on for me to go to sleep to. If I was still awake when the side was over, I would yell out for her to turn it over and she would come and turn it over. I remember many nights of her coming into my room to tell me to stop singing and go to sleep. :D

As I got older my brothers became my influence. My mother ingrained a love for music in me, but it was my older brothers’ albums that influenced what I listened to. To a large extent BarryL still influences me by introducing me to new bands all the time (I hope that I’m able to influence him a bit too).

As you would expect, Barry was into Yes, Kansas, Genesis and other progressive rock bands. I used to listen to his copy of Leftoverture and his Pink Floyd disks all the time. Our older brother was more into stuff like Alice Cooper and David Bowie. Between the two of them I got a pretty well rounded education in rock music. And since Barry has always been a huge collector of music, I had literally hundreds and hundreds of albums at my fingertips.

I blame him for my overflowing CD collection today. :smilewinkgrin:

[Mr MidFi]

That is too much information :D

You mentioned CKLW. That must be from Canada. Do you also remember WLS AM 890 from Chicago? That was the coolest station back in 70's which played the best rock music.

That is too funny. I just got off the phone with my WLS rep... I was pricing some spots for a client. It's all-talk format now. Yesterday, I had to listen to Rush freakin' Limbaugh while I was on hold.

[Mr MidFi]

Oh, and to answer the question... yeah, I have an older brother, too. But we're only a year apart, so we kinda influenced each other. From 1975 through 1980, we purchased all of our music jointly. Mostly prog and and hard rock at first, then mostly new wave.

He cringes when he hears anything even remotely prog today, and vehemently denies that he ever liked it. But I know better. ELP, Genesis, Tull, Yes, Nektar... we listened to that sh!t every day.

[Worf101]

Mom and Dad: Mom and dad bought one of those combo "Hi Fi's" when we were kids growing up in the projects. They mostly listened to Bellafonte, Nina Simone, some light jazz of the day and gospel. They did buy the first "moderen" '45 rpm record we ever owned though "Gypsy Woman" by the "Impressions".

New York City AM "Top 40" radio: The hi fi set had an AM radio (FM was still Science Fiction to us then) so I listened to it every day before heading off to school and every afternoon after cartoons. WMCA "The Good Guys" gave me the Brits, Motown, some Atlantic and everything in between. This broadedned my musical horizons as to what constituted "popular" music.

My Older Brother Charles: Charles and I never agreed on much. Being 2 years older he HATED me, his younger brother and I then, pretty much hated him too. But while Charles was busy being pretty cretinous, he had some friends who were amazingly cool. They hipped him to WWRL "Soul 1600 Radio" then the premiere Black AM radio station in New York in the 60's. WWRL played everything WAMC didn't and I mean EVERYTHING! At first I hated WWRL but I was suffereing then from the "Funky Pox". WWRL had the potion, the soul vaccination if you will that cured me and saved me!

WBLS: What WWRL started, WBLS FM finished. Here I learned of Gil Scott Heron, The Last Poets, Funkadelic, Bobby Womack et al! I was lost, but soon became found.

Da Worfster

[audio amateur]

I am the youngest of the bunch (it seems I'm not the only one here, there's a definite trend!), and therefore have been subject to my older siblings music, back in the 90s. My brother was crazy about Björk (not just the music I don't think:)), and Radiohead. He also listened to Portishead, Pixies, Massive Attack and Air to mention a few.

My sisters both played played piano (one of which plays very well), and my parents either played classical or such artists as Simon & Garfunkel, Barbra Streisand and other older artists. I went through a Hip-Hop period later on which suprisingly is what brought me into the hobby.

[blackraven]

My older brother turned me on to music in the early 1970's, mainly folk and rock. Growing up in NYC in the middle of the Disco craze (BARF) forced to look for other types of music. Back then I listened to a lot of radio (WPLJ) till I was able to save money and buy a nice 15wpc Pioneer receiver, JVC TT and Altec Lansing 2 way speakers. Disco was on just about every radio station.

Also, my first concert had a huge influence on me. It was in the 1970's and Jefferson Airplane put on a free concert in Central park and I think about 50,000 people showed up. It was awesome.

It was in college that I really began to appreciate Blue's and Jazz.

And in the past few years with very little rock music appealing to me that I have gravitated to Vocal Jazz and some Classical.

[Swish]

This was the late 60s, so I started out with Motown and surf pop, especially the Beach Boys, then delved into The Moody Blues and King Crimson. After that, my friends were my biggest influence, although we discovered new music together. We were such geeks that we had an 'album of the week' club, where one of us would bring a record and we'd listen to it in its entirety and give our impressions. That didn't last too long, but we continued to buy vinyl at a torrid pace, considering the era and lack of cash. We just found a way.

[3LB]

Dusty Chalk, dbi, JDaniels, PwrPopGuy, Allears, Demetrio, Davey, Yech, SnowBunny, Darius, Troy, BarryL, Forever Autumn, DarrenH, MindGoneHaywire, HyFi, Swish, Slosh, Stone, DCM, Diagaro, Rae, MonkeyBones, Mr.Midfi, Smokey, AudioGirl, MasterCylinder, Mason Jar, unleasHell, Heywood Djahblomie, tentoze, DaveG, FinchPlatte, InAbsentia, Bobsticks, TodH, BradH, Jim Clark

[ForeverAutumn]

Heywood Djahblomie

Hehehe. And let's not forget...Van Occupanther. ;)

[Swish]

Dusty Chalk, dbi, JDaniels, PwrPopGuy, Allears, Demetrio, Davey, Yech, SnowBunny, Darius, Troy, BarryL, Forever Autumn, DarrenH, MindGoneHaywire, HyFi, Swish, Slosh, Stone, DCM, Diagaro, Rae, MonkeyBones, Mr.Midfi, Smokey, AudioGirl, MasterCylinder, unleasHell, Heywood Djahblomie, tentoze, DaveG, FinchPlatte, InAbsentia, Bobsticks, TodH, BradH, Jim Clark

...I'm guessing you got a lot more out of some of the others. I was actually going to list a bunch of these RR regulars and former visitors. I won't say all of them influenced me, but I certainly spent a lot of $ on cds that were mentioned by some of these people, especially dbi, MGH, Slosh, Stone, and you. Some of the others sent comps with all kinds of good stuff and I bought even more cds based on those tracks, so curse all of you for forcing me to spend my hard earned cash on such frivolous pursuits.

[ForeverAutumn]

...I'm guessing you got a lot more out of some of the others.

Do you still use that set of coasters that I sent you?

:D

[Troy]

In the last 10 years it's definitely music boards like this one, but as a teenager, back in the 70s, I took influences from the usual crowd. My older brother for some kinds of things, my friends for others and the legendary KSAN "Jive 95" radio station out of San Francisco, which was the blueprint for freeform rock FM radio, all over the US.

[Mr MidFi]

Dusty Chalk, dbi, JDaniels, PwrPopGuy, Allears, Demetrio, Davey, Yech, SnowBunny, Darius, Troy, BarryL, Forever Autumn, DarrenH, MindGoneHaywire, HyFi, Swish, Slosh, Stone, DCM, Diagaro, Rae, MonkeyBones, Mr.Midfi, Smokey, AudioGirl, MasterCylinder, unleasHell, Heywood Djahblomie, tentoze, DaveG, FinchPlatte, InAbsentia, Bobsticks, TodH, BradH, Jim Clark

Good point there (and thanks).

I just want to give a shout out to Jar, who may be lurking. He turned me on to some great stuff, back in the day.

[3LB]

Good point there (and thanks).

I just want to give a shout out to Jar, who may be lurking. He turned me on to some great stuff, back in the day.
I still have one of his reggae comps. We see him around every now then.

[Rae]

Well, it's already been said, but so many of the folks here shepherded me into the broader musical world. I had the advantage of stumbling across this board in 1999 when I was still in my formative years and it's shaped what I listen to ever since. I remember that early on we did a comp series that was supposed to be our favorite songs-- the songs that had defined us and transformed us over the course of our lives. I eagerly put my own together so that I could trade it for others and I remember Davey gently saying "seriously? These are your all-time favorites?"... my tastes have grown a lot in the intervening decade and my horizons are a lot wider.

I first got into record collecting off of an issue of Rolling Stone that I picked up at a garage sale that had one of those "500 Essential Albums" lists in it... it must've been from the early 90s because I remember Loveless, Pretty Hate Machine, and Nevermind on it but not much past that. For a while I was on a mission to buy every album that was mentioned. Looking back, it was an incredibly narrow and reductive list but at the time I felt like I finally had a roadmap to a mindblowing world.

A few years later, I dated a woman who set my whole world on its ear (and not just musically). She basically introduced me to the concept of music as organic and populist and not something always created by the canon of rock gods. In some ways, I thought of her as the punk rock older sister that I never had (like in the Juliana Hatfield song, which is actually a perfect encapsulation of this thread).

From 2003-2005, I worked in a record store and that was it. All of the walls fell down and I was able to explore and consume all types of music as voraciously as I liked. I got burned out after a few years, especially from working retail and starting to see music as commodity, but I was exposed to tons of stuff before I did.


Acutally that's one of the first questions I ask of new acquaintances...if I ask what they listen to for music and they Lady Gaga, I know to wrap up the conversation pretty quick.

Wow, that must be incredibly limiting. Some of my favorite people love music that I can't stand, but I can't imagine not knowing them.

~Rae

[Finch Platte]

A group of four guys came to my folks' house when I was a kid about 4 or 5 years old. They brought their gear and played for a while. I guess they influenced me because I've been trying to play like their drummer ever since. Before they left, they signed an album they had released & gave it to me. My mom took it & put it away so I wouldn't wreck it. She gave it to me the other day & I looked at it. Picture of them on the cover, and they ruined it by signing John, Paul, George & Ringo across the front.

Should I keep it?

[Rae]

Should I keep it?

Is it that awful one where they're chopping up babies? Same thing happened to me.

~Rae

[Slosh]

My parents were 21 when I was born ('68) and I grew up listening to The BeAtles, Led Zeppelin, The Stones, James Taylor, Pink Floyd, Jimi, Traffic, etc.

I had a good friend who had an older brother in the Navy and he came back all excited about this new band he discovered and thought they were gonna become really big someday. It was 1975 and that band turned out to be AC/DC. About 4 years later he was home on leave again and had a boot Iron Maiden tape (this was before they had an album out yet).

In the early '80s my first serious girlfriend (well, serious for 7th grade, anyway) always listened to X- Los Angeles, a welcome change of pace after all of that classic rock and metal. I never did become a huge punk fan but certainly listened and learned to appreciate a ton of stuff I probably would have dismissed out of hand if it wasn't for her.

[Hyfi]

Dusty Chalk, dbi, JDaniels, PwrPopGuy, Allears, Demetrio, Davey, Yech, SnowBunny, Darius, Troy, BarryL, Forever Autumn, DarrenH, MindGoneHaywire, HyFi, Swish, Slosh, Stone, DCM, Diagaro, Rae, MonkeyBones, Mr.Midfi, Smokey, AudioGirl, MasterCylinder, Mason Jar, unleasHell, Heywood Djahblomie, tentoze, DaveG, FinchPlatte, InAbsentia, Bobsticks, TodH, BradH, Jim Clark


Now that was good! And back at ya and the rest of the list including a few not listed

[thekid]

That is too much information :D

You mentioned CKLW. That must be from Canada. Do you also remember WLS AM 890 from Chicago? That was the coolest station back in 70's which played the best rock music.

:hand: Trust me I did not tell you everything that went on back there.... :biggrin5:

CKLW was (is?) a Canadian station from Windsor or Sarnia I think. We were on the east coast of Michigan at the time and I don't recall us pulling in any Chicago stations. This radio was very basic but at the time it seemed amazing.

I should add that my time in college was also infuential as I was able to find a variety of LP's that I played and recorded. People back then were always very willing to share their music.

[Auricauricle]

My earliest memories of music include an 8-track tape player/receiver my dad and mom listened to when I was a kid. Johnny Cash, Petula Clark, Burt Bacharach and Roger Williams were among the tapes representing the Hit Parade. Also included were Verdi, Beethoven and Puccini for the classical. When I became aware of the record player, I found a treasure trove of just about everything, including show tunes played by Ferante and Teicher (yes, yes, don't rub it in)...

Taste-wise, a soundtrack to 2001 (on 8 Track) caught my ear at a very early age. I fell in love with Ligeti's work, and to this day enjoy "atonal", electronic and avant garde music that deviates away from the mainstream. I also listened to Smetana's Moldau at a very early age. It made quite an impression with my over-active imagination...

I pretty much wrote rock and roll and such off until I was in the 8th grade, when a friend introduced me to Pink Floyd, a la DSOM. I've been sick ever since.

Does that answer your question?

[Troy]

Taste-wise, a soundtrack to 2001 (on 8 Track) caught my ear at a very early age. I fell in love with Ligeti's work, and to this day enjoy "atonal", electronic and avant garde music that deviates away from the mainstream. I also listened to Smetana's Moldau at a very early age. It made quite an impression with my over-active imagination...

I pretty much wrote rock and roll and such off until I was in the 8th grade, when a friend introduced me to Pink Floyd, a la DSOM. I've been sick ever since.


Yep, now that you mention it, I specifically recall 2001 and DSOTM on 8-Track when I was about 10 too. I was subjected to a lot of Moog albums as well. Influential, no doubt.

[E-Stat]

I think for most music lovers, there is probably some one in their life that influence their taste in music when there were younger...What is your story?
Unlike many here, my family members were not at all involved in music. That was something I discovered on my own when I was 12 and listened to Quixie in Dixie AM 790 hits in Atlanta. In time, I discovered prog rock and really enjoyed Yes, EL&P, Renaissance, etc. That got me primed on classical themes. What changed everything was befriending the owner of a hi-fi shop who opened a store near me when I was 17. I later worked for him in college and through the shop, met JWC who was a writer for TAS at the time. Both Julian and John listened primarily to classical, so listening sessions for new product at the store or hearing JWC's latest system always involved classical, choral or broadway content. I can clearly remember hearing The Planets on Magneplanar T-IIIs tri-amplified with Audio Research electronics back in '74. At first, I was lost but found that I really enjoyed quite a bit of what was getting played. HP introduced me to a number of artists showcased on Hearts of Space.

Today, I still enjoy my pop and rock roots, but enjoy classically oriented soundtracks and many favorites that I was exposed to back in the 70s. In a listening session, I may go through some 60s pop hits (Supremes, Elvis, Association, surf music), the soundtrack from Avatar or the last Harry Potter film, some Prokofiev piano concertos (hearing the second on Dayton-Wrights in '76 is what made me an electrostatic freak) and the TAS Hearts of Space sampler.

rw

[Jack in Wilmington]

It was the late 60's and I was stationed aboard my first nuc submarine. Had picked up the Woodstock soundtrack on reel to reel tape and was wearing it out on the ships tape deck when we were out to sea. Picked up everything that I could get my hands on for my cassette deck in the car back then. Didn't get into vinyl until I got out of the service. A friend of mine started working at Radio Shack and got us hooked on the latest equipment that they had for sale. I had a nice Realistic receiver with a Elac Miracord turntable and Nova 8 speakers. Then he went to work for a local high end store in Cherry Hill, New Jersey and we were moving up to Sansui receivers and Garrard turntables with Advent speakers. I wonder where he is now?

[Swish]

Do you still use that set of coasters that I sent you?

:D

They've saved the finish on my coffee table many a night.

[Swish]

It was the late 60's and I was stationed aboard my first nuc submarine.

Need I say more?

[3LB]

Once upon a time, 16 yrs of age was all you had to be to serve your country, with parental consent of course.

[Smokey]

Thanks evereybody for going down the mememry lane.


We learned so much.......from thekid’s dating maneuvers, to Kex music teachers, poppa’s head banging to metalica, Hify going in three different directions, MasteCylinder memories of summer of 67, Autumn as a child, yelling out to her mother to turn over the album (that was so hilarious), Midfi’s LP buying partner, moment, Worf’s souls searching, audio amateur baby boomers parents, blackraven disco days, Swish 'album of the week' club, 3LB homeboys influence (don't know why I'm on the list)......

........to Troy legendary freeform FM radio, Rea doing exactly what I was doing younger (record collecting off from issue of "500 Essential Albums" of Rolling Stone), Finch house parties with a band, Slosh punk awakening, Auricauricle going from country to classical, E-Stat dreaming of owning a Magneplanar back in collage to Jack in Wilmington AWOLing back in the navy.

It was fun to reminisce.

[Jack in Wilmington]

Need I say more?

Guilty as charged. My sentence, retirement in 1yr and 4 months.

[Swish]

retirement in 1yr and 4 months.

You lucky dog! If my 401K hadn't become a 201K, I might have been able to retire a lot sooner, but methinks I'll be toiling for a few extra years.

Enjoy brother.

[Jack in Wilmington]

You lucky dog! If my 401K hadn't become a 201K, I might have been able to retire a lot sooner, but methinks I'll be toiling for a few extra years.

Enjoy brother.

I was lucky. Mine took a dump the last year Bush was in office, but it was up 25% last year. So I got all that I lost back and made a nice profit or I'd be working a little longer too.
I was still able to put something away for my next upgrade and that's what's really important. I thought I might need a new snowblower if we kept getting hit with storms.

[Feanor]

This is a true story; I don't know if I've told it around here before ...

I really had no interest in music of any kind in high school -- and let's remember that was the time when Elvis was just becoming really popular. Though I had mostly ignored him at the time, we did have a teacher who had made us listen to classical music.

This indifference to music extended into my university years. But one day on the way home on the bus during my senior year, I overheard a middle-aged Jewish lady bragging to another Jewish lady about her son, the doctor. One bragging point was that her son had developed quite an interest in, and knowledge of, classical music despite the fact that no one else in the family had ever been interestedt.

I could relate to the last part, and somehow the idea of classical music resonated in my mind and -- despite being neither Jewish nor a doctor -- I resolved to listen to it occassionally. So though classical it wasn't the first music I listened to when I got my first stereo system 2-3 years later, it did soon become my primary musical interest.

[Smokey]

This indifference to music extended into my university years. But one day on the way home on the bus during my senior year, I overheard a middle-aged Jewish lady bragging to another Jewish lady about her son, the doctor. One bragging point was that her son had developed quite an interest in, and knowledge of, classical music

This might be a tongue in cheek observation, but it seem that those that gravitate toward classical music (like yourself) tend to have higher education training. I wonder if there is some kind of relation between higher education and classical music given that most colleges have dedicated 24/7 classical FM station.

[thekid]

This might be a tongue in cheek observation, but it seem that those that gravitate toward classical music (like yourself) tend to have higher education training. I wonder if there is some kind of relation between higher education and classical music given that most colleges have dedicated 24/7 classical FM station.

Well Smokes there is an exception to every rule and I am it.... :D

I am listening to classical music now on one of the digital music stations provided by my cable TV provider. Pretty much listen to it every morning.

In college my future wife got me hooked on Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" (what is it with me that good music always seems to involve women.. :D ). We actually had it played at our wedding while people were eating and had a ton of people come up later and ask about getting a copy of it.

Lately my son has taken to listening to either Miles Davis or Baroque music while doing his homework. He said it relaxes him while he is trying get through so much work.

[Finch Platte]

As a young child yadda yadda yadda...

As opposed to when you were an old child? :crazy:

[ForeverAutumn]

As opposed to when you were an old child? :crazy:

Yep. By the time I reached 17 I had to get up turn the record over myself. :p

[Mr MidFi]

I should have mentioned that one thing that didn't really influence my listening very much was working for a couple years in a record store.

I learned a lot working there... how to ring a register, how to tally inventory, how to sell, how to process a retail return, how to tally a cash drawer and make a night deposit at the bank, how to put up a promotional display, how to discourage shoplifting, how to take advantage of an employee discount, how to score front-row tickets for shows, etc. But I didn't learn that much about music there.

[Stone]

My start was similar to Aricauricle's. For some reason, my dad got his 45s out of my grandma's basement, and gave them to me, followed by a bunch of 8-tracks. I ate that stuff up, which was 60s rock/pop stuff like early Beatles, Beach Boys, Jan & Dean, Kinks, and the Rolling Stones. That triggered the passion and taste of my music listening. The trigger pushing me into non-mainstream music was in 9th grade, when a guy transferred in to our school. I grew up in rural Iowa in a town of 3000, and he came in with a long rat tail and strange looks. We became friends and he introduced me to the Dead Kennedys, The Smiths, and Oingo Boingo. I got so into punk and alternative music that I would go to the record store and buy albums based on the cover art alone.

[Smokey]

We became friends and he introduced me to the Dead Kennedys, The Smiths, and Oingo Boingo. I got so into punk and alternative music that I would go to the record store and buy albums based on the cover art alone.

I am also big fan of 80s alternative music and have to say Rolling Stone magazine had big influence in introducing me to prog rock groups. You mentioned Smiths. Others worth mentioning from that era probably be Simple Minds, Roxy Music, Psychedelic Furs, early REM and Talking Heads.

....oh, almost forgot to mention Duran Duran :D

[hifitommy]

the person that first influenced me was my mother who always had the radio on back in the late 40's and early 50s. those stations played ALL styles of music. bing crosby, sabre dance, elvis, les paul, etc. quite unlike today where stations have narrow interest playlists.

she was influenced by my father who was a musician-a bass player. i remember hearing benny goodman's boogie woogie a lot. i think he played with sammy kaye when he was in town as i remember going to a concert then and he wasnt with us. realize i was 5 yrs old when he died.

later, my sister, in high school (53-57) l, had a record player on which she played mule train by frankie laine and some dave brubeck etc. this was the heyday of elvis and bill haley.

in 7th and 8th grade, i got into what is now considered to be classic rock and roll, sonny james, the drifters, and like that. in high school, because jazz came on the regular stations, brubecks take five and ahmad jamals poinciana were heard there along with bobby darin and the coasters etc.

about when i went into the air force, the beatles were a big thing but i didnt really get it until i got out and they were breaking up then.

when i got to california in late '70 i was exposed to progressive rock on krla and later kmet and klos. still, jazz was a prominent factor for me and knx provided a mix of rock and some jazz. it was my friend glen baker who got me into progressive rock as he had worked at kppc before it became kroq. then punk came in which i had no interest.

jazz became more prominent for me as i attended live music here in so cal and is my mainstay. i listen to kkjz.org and other jazz stations on the net. smooth jazz stations like the wave are bypassed most of the time. only rarely do they play anything interesting.

[JoeE SP9]

When I was still a young high school lad (early 60's) I listened to the usual top 40 radio music. Then I heard a London Phase 4 recording of Ronnie Aldrich and his two piano's. That was the most natural sounding recording I'd ever heard. It started me listening to classical music.
Jukebox music as played in bars was also a big influence. The drinking age in NY state was 18 back then so I could go to the bars. Bar's for people "of color" have always played music to dance to. So Motown, Atlantic and Stax Volt artists among others were added to my "likes". While in the service I was exposed to rock, folk and psychedelic. They were added to the list. I discovered Ahmad Jamal, Charles Loyd and "real" Jazz also while in the service. It's a journey that has no end. I'm still discovering and being exposed to "new" music. To sum it up I've been influenced by many different artists and genre's

[recoveryone]

As for people it would be my older brother and parents, The house was filled with Motown hits and such, My brother intoduce me to Hendrix and later on jazz/Funk and fusion.

[unleasHell]

I had no older siblings so I learned about music the same way I learned about sex, by watching the neighborhood dogs.. no wait, that's another story, nevermind, at a very young age I became smitten with anything musically different, I bought Amon Duul II: Tanz der Lemmings when I was like 14, same with Can: Future Days. I remember riding my sting-ray 10 miles to buy Aqua by Edgar Frose (Tangerine Dream), you don't even want to know what I am listening to nowadays....

And since we are going all nostalgic, who else had a Pioneer PL-12D?

[MindGoneHaywire]

http://thepilver.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/generic-beer.jpg