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Post by berkley on Oct 18, 2024 18:52:03 GMT -5
#7 - Rock On with Buddy by Buddy Holly (1980) My Dad was a big Buddy Holly fan, but when I was a little kid, I thought Holly and his music was the height of uncool. I mean, come on…the guy looked like a dork in those glasses! All that changed when I saw The Buddy Holly Story starring Gary Busey as Buddy on TV one night, when I was around 15 or so, in 1987. The film really gripped me and, despite its many inaccuracies, showed me just what a visionary talent he was. By the next day I had done a complete about-face and was asking my father if I could borrow one of his Buddy Holly LPs. The one he picked out for me was this 1980 compilation. Rock On with Buddy was a budget compilation put out on EMI's Music for Pleasure imprint and boasts a generous selection of 20 tracks. It eschews some of Buddy's bigger hits, like "Peggy Sue", "Words of Love", or "That'll Be the Day", and instead focuses on the rockier side of his recorded output for the most part (though there are still big hits like "Oh Boy!" and "Rave On" included too). My introduction to Holly's music happened at roughly the same time as I began to learn how to play guitar and the fact that many of Holly's songs were quite easy to play cemented my love of his music. A bit later, once I had begun to write my own songs, the simplicity of Holly's material remained a big inspiration: you don't need to overcomplicate a song if you have a strong enough melody and a good enough groove. I still have my Dad's copy of this album and, of course, these days I'm a big Buddy Holly fan myself, with around 19 or 20 Buddy Holly LPs or CDs in my collection. He is without doubt my favourite '50s rock 'n' roller. A track from this compilation that I've always loved is Holly's breathless rockabilly run through of Sonny Curtis' "Rock Around with Ollie Vee". Give it a listen – it's a gas… Love Buddy Holly's music.Chuck Berry probably just shades him as my favourite 50s rock and roll songwriter/performer but there isn't much to choose between them. |
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Post by berkley on Oct 19, 2024 2:28:01 GMT -5
7. The Carlton Showband at the Pig and Whistle The Pig and Whistle was a musical variety show on CTV, one of the our two Canadian tv channels that were all we had until cable came along in the late 70s and early 80s. It featured a line-up of Irish, Scottish, and English music-hall style performers - can you imagine anything like this being on the air today? Yet it was hugely popular in Newfoundland in the late 60s and early 70s and according to wikipedia across the rest of Canada too. As a youngster I thought it was an actual pub that they did the show in every week but of course it was just a tv studio in Toronto. There were bars or pubs in Nfld named after it because of its popularity, and once, when I heard my parents and uncles and aunts say they were going out to the Pig and Whistle I thought they were going to the actual Pig and Whistle where the show was done. The joke you see on the cover above - "A London Derrière Indeed!" (a Londonderry Air, get it?!) is typical of the innocently risqué humour of the show, as I remember it. Anyway, the Carlton Showband were the house band, an Irish showband (there were a who played a mixture of traditional Irish tunes, country & western, contemporary easy-listening, basically anything they thought would get an audience going. Here are a few samples: One of their upbeat tunes, no doubt designed to please what I imagine were probably two of their biggest audiences in Canada, Cape Breton and Newfoundland: After my Engelbert post, I'm probably pushing my luck with this next one but sentimental ballads like the following were an important part of their repertoire: And since at the height of their popularity this was probably their most familiar song across Canada, here's the closing theme to the Pig and Whistle show, even though it most illogically was NOT on their "At the Pig and Whistle" album:
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,202 
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Post by Confessor on Oct 19, 2024 4:25:10 GMT -5
This one should be no surprise to anyone that knows me. I'm not sure if I bought this with my own money in 1964 or if it was a gift but whichever, it was the first record I could claim as my own. Besides The Beatles changing the way I thought of music in 1964, they evolved and got more wonderfully complex through the years just as I did, going through my puberty and late teen age phase. My hair styles and clothing choices in the late 60's-early 70s I could blame on The Beatles as well as my developing music taste I had a lot of company with those also influenced by the lads  Great album, of course. You know, even though it's not one of the "official" UK albums, I was saying on one of the recent CCF Zoom chats that, actually, I think that track-for-track Meet the Beatles is a stronger album than the British With the Beatles. The first three tracks alone, "I Want to Hold Your Hand", "I Saw Her Standing There" and "This Boy" -- all of which were not included on With the Beatles -- make for one hell of an album opener. Anyway, great pick. We'll see these fellas again in this run down... |
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,202
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Post by Confessor on Oct 19, 2024 4:30:28 GMT -5
#6 - 1962–1966 and 1967–1970 by The Beatles (1973)  I'm kinda cheating a bit with this pick because it's technically two double album compilations. But come on, clearly they are a set that is designed to survey the Beatles' finest and most famous songs from across their whole career. So, I'm treating this as one 4-LP compilation.  I discovered these compilations in my parents record collection at around age 7 or 8, in 1980, and I just couldn't stop listening to them. What's interesting to me is that the red album (62–66) was my Dad's and the blue album (67–70) was my Mum's, which pretty much sums up their individual music tastes: Dad's being rock 'n' roll and early '60s beat music, while Mum was into more progressive late '60s fare. Listening to these albums is how I fell in love with the Beatles' music. For a long while I thought this was all there was to the Beatles' oeuvre too. It was only some years later that I realised that the Beatles put out individual albums with hundreds of tracks I'd not heard before. Anyway, I'm sure that pretty much everyone here knows that the Beatles are my #1 favourite band and their music has been a massive influence on me personally, philosophically, and musically. I've picked out "In My Life" from the red album as a sample track. Even at the tender age of 8, I understood the lyric's basic message of yearning nostalgia for events, people and places from years gone by, juxtaposed with an awareness that a significant other has now made the present even more magical than those bygone days. Obviously, the song's subject matter has only become more and more resonant as I've grown older. At some point in the late '90s, my Dad told me that "In My Life" was his all-time favourite Beatles song. When he passed away, we played it at his funeral, which only served to load the song with even more significance for me. It's a song that just seems to get more powerful the longer I live…
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Post by impulse on Oct 19, 2024 9:51:48 GMT -5
Sorry, life is busy, I missed yesterday, so you guys will need to suffer through two from me today. I'll try and space them out. I also want to respond to a lot of what you guys have been posting, but it will have to wait until I can circle back to it. So again, you all will be blessed with another long post from me.  I'll try and keep it concise and organized. As for yesterday's makeup post, we are still on my parents' (let's be real, it's my dad's) music collection I got into when I was first exploring music on purpose for real in the early-mid 90s. I know how much Slam_Bradley will love this one. 7. Led Zeppelin II by Led Zeppelin - 1969 If you've had a pulse, ears and consciousness any time in the last 40 years, it's nearly impossible not to have heard Led Zeppelin, especially this album and IV. I was no exception, and I hooked onto them pretty early. My dad did have this one on vinyl, but I think his copy was scratched and I mostly listened to it on CD. I'm not 100% sure, but it's not the most important detail. Led Zeppelin was my dad's favorite band for a very long time, and while his favorite was the first (which became mine over time), this is the one that caught me as young'un. From the moment that guitar riff on Whole Lotta Love started, I was into it. I had never heard anything like the weird drugged-out interlude. Then Heartbreaker comes blaring in which was so catchy and rocked so hard, and that sloppy lead playing was to my ears the coolest thing on guitar I heard up to that point. The Lemon Song was dirty, and I wasn't supposed to listen to it, and I honestly didn't love the faster "noisy" part that was a little too harsh for me at the time (which is hilarious to think of now), but that groovy bass breakdown was incredible. Still one of my favorite basslines and sections on anything. It was super cool, and it likely planted the seeds for appreciate rhythm and blues and funk I would later get into. Back then, I had no interest in Thank You or Ramble On. What were these stupid folky ballads doing in my rock and roll record?! I was borderline with What Is and What Should Never Be, but the uptempo part saved it for me. Heartbreaker into Livin' Lovin' Maid was another ubiquitous radio one-two combo that was an everpresent part of the radio where I lived in the 90s. The drum solo on Moby Dick was legendary and was probably the first time I really drumming. Like many before me, I was mesmerized by Bonhams thunderous drums and the Bonham triplets. My dad and I liked the way he almost sounded like he was playing slightly behind the beat. Just another example of my early education on the importance of the rhythm section, and how it's not all down to the guitar players. They closed out it out strong with Bring It On Home. Ironically, I used to skip it at first because the minute-long bluesy intro was too boring at the time, but once I got to the meat of it, I was hooked. The verse guitar riffs were so catchy and heavy (at the time) that I loved it. It's hard to overstate how much Led Zeppelin was part of the backdrop of my teenage years, and I REALLY got into them in my early 20s when I discovered their BBC Sessions collection. They were one of those bands that absolutely sounded better live, and so many of those recordings captured the raw energy and power they had, and the sheer musical charisma and synergy they had. They were one of those bands that the whole was much greater than the sum of its parts. While the studio recordings were cleaner, they didn't capture the synergy and raw energy those guys had. The live sessions also had an improvisational element, too, where the band would jam on bits of songs in the middle of others. There were mistakes and going slightly off at times that just added to the experience at the time. Page's playing on this collection also LARGELY influenced my lead guitar playing during my formative musical years. Like others around here, I am largely burned out on most classic rock bands. They've been so present for so long that I've just heard all I need to tenfold by them. Plus as I've gotten into harder music, they don't pack the same punch they used to. Not to say everything has to, but when I'm wanting to rock out, they don't quote scratch the itch anymore. I do still like to listen to them now and then, though. It's just more likely that rather than being on my weekly rotation, I might binge all their albums every couple years now, go oh yeah, that's cool, and move on. That said, I do still like to put on the BBC Sessions sometimes. It's the closest I will ever get to seeing the live in their prime. Oh, funny side note there. In the mid 90s, Page and Plant got together and were touring near us. We heard the new single on the radio, that it was eh. We considered going to see them, but we assumed they would just play all the new stuff we didn't care about, so we passed. Come to find out it was like three new songs and then basically a Zeppelin sit. One of my personal all-time musical FAILS lol. For my example song, I'll go with Bring It On Home. It didn't get quite as played to death as the others. |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Oct 19, 2024 13:08:04 GMT -5
From 1964 thru 1967, as a young kid with very limited money, I had to settle for AM radio listening with all it's commercials and static. Somehow I managed to obtain The Beatle albums as they came out. Maybe purchased a half dozen 45 RPM singles each year as well. Most of my spending cash would go towards comics (learning how to prioritize what is important ) My music experience changed dramatically during the winter of 1967. Got a reel-to-reel tape recorder handed down to me from the family. So during 1968 I started collecting all the songs I enjoyed on tape. Also slowly started to gravitate to the new FM radio stations in my city. Started to ask, then beg and plead, my friends and just about anyone I got to know, if I could borrow their albums to make a copy. And that's how I run into my next pick. The Doors 1967 debut album was amazing to me. Sure, I knew the song Light My Fire, played constantly on the radio throughout the summer. But here I'm listening to the full length version. Guess it was the first time I heard a rock band playing long instrumental jams with superb skills. Soul Kitchen, Twentieth Century Fox, Alabama Song, Back Door Man-the album was packed. And the finale, aptly titled The End- WTF? Yeah, this was one of those albums I loved and which broadened my taste in music  And I still think this song is one of the greatest intro songs on an intro album |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Oct 19, 2024 19:28:46 GMT -5
Feeling under the weather today, but wanted to at least get my entry down. Will try to catch up with everyone else tomorrow.  6. All Aboard the Blue Train by Johnny Cash (Sun 1962) This is one of a number of compilation albums that Sun put out for quite a few years after Cash jumped to Capitol Records. This is a mixture of songs that were in the can and previous single releases. This was Dad's music (there was fairly distinct Dad and Mom music). And it was also poker music. There were less Johnny Cash albums than one might have expected and the ones that were there were of his Sun output, rather than his later Capitol work. But this one definitely got a lot of play and had some truly great tracks. I love Cash across eras, while recognizing that his output from about 1975 through 1994 was pretty damn dire. But I'm still very partial to his Sun records. Instead of the expected song...let's go with one that Cash wrote that I think deserves more love. |
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Post by impulse on Oct 19, 2024 20:19:26 GMT -5
And for today's entry, here is number 6. This will also be the last one from my parents' collection, so the rest will be early influential albums I got into myself. 6. Machine Head by Deep Purple (1972)  Background:This was again in the mid-late 90s. Pretty much all of this happened in a fairly short window as I kind of raided my dad's record collection all at once around the same time we got the CD player and the old sound system set back up. This selection was also really hard to make as again, it all happened at once, and there quite a few albums I could just as easily list here. Many I probably listened to more than this one, quite frankly, but the assignment is influential albums, so I settled on this one. The Album:For me, a lot of the fun of getting into rock music wasn't just the music, but the mystique of it all. The art, the lore, and the band names. The band names! I remember the novelty and seeming randomness of so many bands from this time being really appealing, and something about the words DEEP PURPLE MACHINE HEAD embossed in metal with the trippy out of focus of these long-haired dudes looking cool and nonchalant just stuck out. Once I put the album on, I noticed the BIG THICK FAT guitar sound. Like many others, I was first hooked by Smoke on the Water. As many times as I've heard it, I still have to admit that is one heck of an opening. The slow build, punchy riff, groovy drums, and that FAT ASS bass tone, my God. What a cool intro. It's simple, it's overplayed, but it's great catchy rock song, and it worked. I never really got into the band too much, and I wasn't a particular fan of the whole album, but the mystique, the art, the name, the sound, and those few songs stuck with me. Other than Smoke on the Water, I always liked Highway Star and Space Truckin', and that is where the influential part comes in. Beyond just cementing me as a fan of that fatter heavier guitar sound and selling me on how cool it was, Highway Star was the first "proto-thrash" song I'd ever heard. Uptempo fast chuggy guitar riffs and blaring power chords. That definitely laid some groundwork for my future path. Space Truckin' had some cool-ass walking metal-ish riffs, and the way he just yelled "COME ONNNN!!" over the riffs reminds me of...some bands that I will be getting to next week! |
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Post by impulse on Oct 19, 2024 20:21:00 GMT -5
#6 - 1962–1966 and 1967–1970 by The Beatles (1973) I'm kinda cheating a bit with this pick because it's technically two double album compilations. But come on, clearly they are a set that is designed to survey the Beatles' finest and most famous songs from across their whole career. So, I'm treating this as one 4-LP compilation. I still think it is absolutely RIDICULOUS every time I remember that those jerks did everything they did together in like...8 years and before they were 30. Like come on, how is anyone supposed to compete with that? |
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Post by berkley on Oct 19, 2024 20:56:18 GMT -5
#6 - 1962–1966 and 1967–1970 by The Beatles (1973) I'm kinda cheating a bit with this pick because it's technically two double album compilations. But come on, clearly they are a set that is designed to survey the Beatles' finest and most famous songs from across their whole career. So, I'm treating this as one 4-LP compilation. I discovered these compilations in my parents record collection at around age 7 or 8, in 1980, and I just couldn't stop listening to them. What's interesting to me is that the red album (62–66) was my Dad's and the blue album (67–70) was my Mum's, which pretty much sums up their individual music tastes: Dad's being rock 'n' roll and early '60s beat music, while Mum was into more progressive late '60s fare. Listening to these albums is how I fell in love with the Beatles' music. For a long while I thought this was all there was to the Beatles' oeuvre too. It was only some years later that I realised that the Beatles put out individual albums with hundreds of tracks I'd not heard before. Anyway, I'm sure that pretty much everyone here knows that the Beatles are my #1 favourite band and their music has been a massive influence on me personally, philosophically, and musically. I've picked out "In My Life" from the red album as a sample track. Even at the tender age of 8, I understood the lyric's basic message of yearning nostalgia for events, people and places from years gone by, juxtaposed with an awareness that a significant other has now made the present even more magical than those bygone days. Obviously, the song's subject matter has only become more and more resonant as I've grown older. At some point in the late '90s, my Dad told me that "In My Life" was his all-time favourite Beatles song. When he passed away, we played it at his funeral, which only served to load the song with even more significance for me. It's a song that just seems to get more powerful the longer I live…
I've mentioned a few times in the past that I had a roughly similar experience with these albums so they'll be on my list as well. I'm glad you put them both in one rank, now I can free up another spot!
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Post by berkley on Oct 19, 2024 21:03:58 GMT -5
And for today's entry, here is number 6. This will also be the last one from my parents' collection, so the rest will be early influential albums I got into myself. 6. Machine Head by Deep Purple (1972) Background:This was again in the mid-late 90s. Pretty much all of this happened in a fairly short window as I kind of raided my dad's record collection all at once around the same time we got the CD player and the old sound system set back up. This selection was also really hard to make as again, it all happened at once, and there quite a few albums I could just as easily list here. Many I probably listened to more than this one, quite frankly, but the assignment is influential albums, so I settled on this one. The Album:For me, a lot of the fun of getting into rock music wasn't just the music, but the mystique of it all. The art, the lore, and the band names. The band names! I remember the novelty and seeming randomness of so many bands from this time being really appealing, and something about the words DEEP PURPLE MACHINE HEAD embossed in metal with the trippy out of focus of these long-haired dudes looking cool and nonchalant just stuck out. Once I put the album on, I noticed the BIG THICK FAT guitar sound. Like many others, I was first hooked by Smoke on the Water. As many times as I've heard it, I still have to admit that is one heck of an opening. The slow build, punchy riff, groovy drums, and that FAT ASS bass tone, my God. What a cool intro. It's simple, it's overplayed, but it's great catchy rock song, and it worked. I never really got into the band too much, and I wasn't a particular fan of the whole album, but the mystique, the art, the name, the sound, and those few songs stuck with me. Other than Smoke on the Water, I always liked Highway Star and Space Truckin', and that is where the influential part comes in. Beyond just cementing me as a fan of that fatter heavier guitar sound and selling me on how cool it was, Highway Star was the first "proto-thrash" song I'd ever heard. Uptempo fast chuggy guitar riffs and blaring power chords. That definitely laid some groundwork for my future path. Space Truckin' had some cool-ass walking metal-ish riffs, and the way he just yelled "COME ONNNN!!" over the riffs reminds me of...some bands that I will be getting to next week!
This was going to be one of my picks too but through the process of reading other posters' remarks over the last few days more of my own memories have been awoken and I've now settled on things that came a little earlier in my musical journey. But this ws definitely an important album to me at around the age of 12 or 13 or so. I loved the whole record but it was Highway Star and Lazy that were my particular favourites.
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Post by berkley on Oct 19, 2024 21:13:14 GMT -5
Sorry, life is busy, I missed yesterday, so you guys will need to suffer through two from me today. I'll try and space them out. I also want to respond to a lot of what you guys have been posting, but it will have to wait until I can circle back to it. So again, you all will be blessed with another long post from me. I'll try and keep it concise and organized. As for yesterday's makeup post, we are still on my parents' (let's be real, it's my dad's) music collection I got into when I was first exploring music on purpose for real in the early-mid 90s. I know how much Slam_Bradley will love this one. 7. Led Zeppelin II by Led Zeppelin - 1969I had Led Zeppelin I and Houses of the Holy, and my older brother had Led Zeppelin III, so those were the Zeppelin albums I knew well growing up. I did have Led Zeppelin II on cassette tape that one of the guys in our neighbourhood taped off for me from his albums so I kind of knew it but at the same time didn't if you see what I mean. |
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Post by berkley on Oct 19, 2024 21:16:45 GMT -5
From 1964 thru 1967, as a young kid with very limited money, I had to settle for AM radio listening with all it's commercials and static. Somehow I managed to obtain The Beatle albums as they came out. Maybe purchased a half dozen 45 RPM singles each year as well. Most of my spending cash would go towards comics (learning how to prioritize what is important ) My music experience changed dramatically during the winter of 1967. Got a reel-to-reel tape recorder handed down to me from the family. So during 1968 I started collecting all the songs I enjoyed on tape. Also slowly started to gravitate to the new FM radio stations in my city. Started to ask, then beg and plead, my friends and just about anyone I got to know, if I could borrow their albums to make a copy. And that's how I run into my next pick. The Doors 1967 debut album was amazing to me. Sure, I knew the song Light My Fire, played constantly on the radio throughout the summer. But here I'm listening to the full length version. Guess it was the first time I heard a rock band playing long instrumental jams with superb skills. Soul Kitchen, Twentieth Century Fox, Alabama Song, Back Door Man-the album was packed. And the finale, aptly titled The End- WTF? Yeah, this was one of those albums I loved and which broadened my taste in music And I still think this song is one of the greatest intro songs on an intro album Great album. I didn't have a copy of my own until I was in my late teens in the late 70s or early 80s when there was a bit of a Doors revival, I think partly due to the Morrison bio that came out around then, No One Here Gets Out Alive. I love that they covered a Kurt Weill song. |
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Post by berkley on Oct 19, 2024 23:14:59 GMT -5
6. Harry Hibbs at the Caribou ClubHarry Hibbs was an accordion player and singer from Newfoundland who was mostly based out of the Caribou Club in Toronto at first as part of the Caribou Club Showband (another of those showbands), then as a solo artist as his popularity grew. The Caribou Club had a clientele mostly made up of Newfoundlanders who had gone to the Toronto area for work. My father played accordion himself and my uncle did so professionally, so this kind of music was a big part of the environment I grew up in, especially in my younger years up to around age 11 or 12 when I started getting more heavily into rock music. Black Velvet Band, probably his best known song, was an enormous hit for him in Newfoundland, it was all over our local AM station in the late 60s: And here's an instrumental, Isle of Newfoundland:
edit: I fell I should add an upbeat instrumental, as this kind of accordion tune was very characteristic of this music:
If anyone's curiosity is piqued there's a video of the Caribou Club tv show on youtube where you can see other performers besides, including an Ontario country singer, Dianne Leigh, who I think had a really nice voice and stage presence. (edit: here's a link: At the Caribou 1972 episode
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,202
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Post by Confessor on Oct 20, 2024 7:17:47 GMT -5
I'm on the run a bit today, so I've only got time to quickly post today's album. There are recent album picks from a number of other members that I want to comment on, but that'll have to wait 'til later this evening, when I have a bit more time. Anyway, moving on now to 5 influential albums that I bought myself early in my musical journey... #5 - Kings of the Wild Frontier by Adam and the Ants (1980)  Adam and his dandified group of Ants were the biggest band in Britain by 1981 and were all over the television, radio and teen magazines. They were also the first contemporary band that, as a 9-year-old, had ever really mattered to me. I resolutely saved as much of my weekly pocket money as I could and, when I had enough, I purchased the band's Kings of the Wild Frontier album – the first LP I bought myself. Musically, the band are kinda hard to pigeonhole. They originally came out of the London punk scene, but by the time of this album they were a weird hybrid of new wave and '80s pop, with catchy, hook-laden songs, decorated in caterwauling backing vocals and thundering Burundi style African drums. They also took the New Romantic fondness for a bit of lip gloss and eye shadow to almost ludicrous extremes, with the band all wearing face paint and dressing themselves up in swashbuckling pirate garb. Looking back, they were pretty weird, in all honesty, but I didn't notice that as a kid. Standout tracks on this album would include the drum-heavy singles "Dog Eat Dog" and "Kings of the Wild Frontier", the self-referencing "Antmusic", and the tongue-in-cheek, Sergio Leone-inspired "Los Rancheros". But really, it's a very strong album from start to finish. I loved this album so much at the time and I played it over and over again. And you know what? I still love it today. It still very much holds up and Adam & the Ants' music still inspires and influences my own music today. In fact, I think you can even hear the influence of Adam & the Ants in the silly theme song I wrote for the Classic Comics Forum In-depth podcast. Anyway, in short, I had great taste even at the tender age of 9; what can I tell ya? Here's the opening track, "Dog Eat Dog", which was the band's breakthrough hit in the UK. It's a good representation of what the whole album sounds like… |
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I'll try and keep it concise and organized.