In the sixties, when I was a little kid, I was brought up listening to Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass – my dad had all their albums (“South of the border”, “The lonely bull”, “Going places”, “A taste of honey”, “Whipped cream and other delights”, etc.), as well as the various hits by Sergio Mendes & Brazil ’66. Never really gave any thought to where I picked up my love for Latin Jazz, but I guess these two bands are the roots of that passion.
I have sometimes wondered why our household wasn’t a “Beatles” house. But, giving it some thought just now, my mom was 40 in 1964, my dad was 40 in 1968 which were the “prime” Beatles years and myself, I was just five or ten yrs old during that period. Of course, being in their late thirties or early forties, my parents did NOT listen to that type of music back then (“long hair”, but if you gave it some thought now, Beatles’ music was pretty tame back then, I mean, Eleanor Rigby, Hey Jude, etc.) Although I don’t think we ever had any Elvis or Johnny (Cash) records playing on the stereo, I think both of them may have listened to those two, in the fifties. But, in the sixties, it was mostly easy listening and maybe some jazz or big band. Can’t really remember what other albums they had in the record cabinet.
We won’t even talk about my love for classical music – I think they only had one classical album – The Detroit Symphony with Antal Dorati, playing Grofe’s “Grand Canyon Suite”, and Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess”. I am almost 99% certain my love (for classical) came from being in “Band” in elementary, junior/senior high school, as well as listening/buying movie soundtrack records at Corvettes dept. store on Twelve Mile and Gratiot (riding there in my bike to satisfy my music addiction in Jr HS). [later on, as I learned how to drive and got my own car, the trips were to Harmony House Records in either Harper Woods or GPW, and, before that it was StereoLand, in the same area, but in addition to selling stereos, they also had a record section as well.]
By the time I moved to L.A. in ’84, I had quite a collection (dozens, if not a hundred) of LPs and Cassettes. But, I remember buying my (very) first CD player at a “stereo” store in L.A. a few months later. And, it was all downhill from there, buying a handful (or two) of CDs each month, the beginning of my classical music collection [before CDs, I was only listening/buying popular (’70s, early ’80), jazz or soundtrack records/cassettes].
Buying and listening to Classical music – I didn’t know where to start (with buying) – I’d never gone to a DSO concert as a kid or young adult, on the other hand, I think both Detroit and L.A. had classical music stations and I’m guessing I spent some time in the car listening to these stations. I remember going to only one or two symphony concerts in the 3-4 yrs I lived in L.A. Upon moving to the Twin Cities in early ’88, and my working with Kelsey Bruso, and subsequently with his becoming my best friend, we started going to the MN Orchestra together a couple or few times together each season. But, before his friendship, while living in L.A., I remember there was this absolutely fantastic record/CD shop a mile or two from my apartment called Tower Records! It was simply the best place to buy all sorts of music, but they also had such a fantastic Classical music section – just tons of different composers and orchestras to choose from. THAT store (Tower Records) was THE start of my listening to Classical music CDs. Alas, it went bankrupt after I moved away (ok, it was more than fifteen yrs later, but I really think my moving away and my not buying a dozen CDs each month was what did them in!) Back to MN, in the ’90s…not much more to say, other than saying, I still really enjoy seeing the MN Orchestra play, but all the independent CD (music) stores have all closed (several yrs ago) and Best Buy has a terrible (and limited) selection of CDs, really only a handful, if any at all these days. This post is already too long so I’m going to skip my commenting about iTunes (and the downloading of music – will leave that for another time) and just end with:
(All I really was going to post was the fact that) I’ve been listening to Herb Alpert’s station on Pandora Radio, toe tapping on a very gloomy (and now very dark) day. [LOL]
