What year did you first get into music ?

Louis Armstrong - What A Wonderful World

Diana by Paul Anka. I won second prize in a talent contest at the Gaiety Theatre in Ayr when I was three or so years old. My parents couldn't believe it when I marched up to the stage and sang it. Everybody told me I was best and the winner only got it because she looked like Shirley Temple. Where is she now? I hope she can sleep at night and I wish I had those balls now.

A few years later I heard on the BBC Light Programme Love Me Do introduced by a new group called the Silver Beetles (?) and there was no going back. Even as a seven year old I knew it was special.

Probably 1960, Apache by The Shadows.

Like many people it made me pick up the guitar, I really must learn to play it though.

Hmm. Probably around 1972. Soley Soley by Middle Of The road & I'd like to teach the world to sing by New seekers!!! Ouch!! Progressed quickly onto Alvin Stardust etc. Then Sparks, Roxy, Bowie and the rest is history so to speak.

Pinball Wizard released by the new seekers that led me to Tommy

My dad's copy of Blondie's Parallel Lines.  I was just old enough to operate his KLH. I still have the LP, and it survived and is still very playable. First album I bought with my own lawn mowing money was Def Leopard - Pyromania, on cassette of course. That one is happily lost.

Around 1970 when I started to enjoy the chart show on Sunday evening on the way back from visiting my Grandmother in the car with my parents.

I the first single I purchased was probably "Whiter shade of pale" not long after.

Jono

At about 18 months of age! My father was in the Navy and when he returned from a tour of duty he would usually bring some records from the US. My first word apparently was 'band' which I would keep repeating whilst hitting a saucepan with a wooden spoon until he put some music on.

The first single I purchased was 'House of the Rising Sun' by the Animals in '63, I was seven. But I was well into music by that time.

Steve

I was heavily influenced by two older sisters, listening in the early 70s to Bob Dylan, the new seekers, david Bowie  Mike Oldfield, at the time I was 6 or 7, out of all of them david Bowie was my favourite. In 77 or 78 I bought ( no, no I wont tell you what my first single was) my second single, it was holidays in the sun by the sex pistols, my early teenage years being heavily influenced by punk. I do not listen to much of it now with the exception of Stranglers, Ramones, and maybe a couple of others for purely nostalgic reasons, but I never forgot David Bowie and still listen weekly to his amazing music

Regards

Donald

I have since become a devout fan of Mike Oldfield and listen to him very regularly too.

I think 1978 was when I really got into music, I taped the top 20 on Radio 1, but it finally heard a couple of bands I wanted more of than just the odd single.

First was Status Quo, the album 'If You Can't Stand the Heat', I really liked the guitar solos, and although the Quo went by the wayside it was an introduction to rock and metal that lasts to this day. I might get hold a copy of the couple of Quo albums I had on cassette many years ago, might be fun to hear them again.

My second album came from a different source when I discovered what the music I liked from 'The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy' was, a lot was from Jean Michel Jarre's 'Oxygene' (although the releases had to have new soundtracks when released for copyright reasons, that is why when Arthur says 'Do you realise that your robot can hum like Pink Floyd, the soundtrack should really be 'Crazy Diamond'). I was also pleased to discover 'Oxygene' included piece of music I had heard on Nationwide in a piece about black holes. The love of electronic music also remains.

As for 'Shine on you Crazy Diamond'  a couple of year's later when I heard 'Wish You Were Here' I recognised a piece of music I had really liked use in a piece on caving on Look North.

Shirley Collins and the Beatles in equal measure - having previously been subjected to the singing talents of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Dickie Valentine I used to think oh no, not that wrenched gramophone thing again, you see 

I remember when I was just five years old
There was nothing happening at all
Every time they stuck on Sinatra, I thought
There was a nothin' goin' down at all, not at all
Then one fine morning, they put on Radio Luxembourg 

You know, I couldn't believe what I heard at all
I started singing to that fine fine music
You know my life was saved by rock 'n' roll
Despite all the boring crooners, you know I could just go 
And sing to a rock 'n' roll station

It was all right, It was all right

When I was just by five years old
I thought why these crooners gonna be the death of us all
Two TV sets and two Cadillac cars 
Well you know it ain't gonna help me at all, not at all
So one fine morning, I turned on Radio Luxembourg
I didn't believe what I heard at all
Ooh, I started singing to that fine fine music
You know my life was saved by rock 'n' roll,
Despite all the computation, I could just sing to a rock 'n' roll station

Yes I then I found amongst the record collection an album that was mostly unplayed - it said  "Folk Roots, New Roots" - well I liked the word new so I played it and the rest as they say is ..... For me Shirley Collins is and always will be the most important figure in contemporary music - she re-launched the great tunes of a tradition that was being lost ..... and inspired my undying appreciation of Morris dancing. 

So then I listened to lots of great sounds and along came Alan Freeman, not 'arf and John Peel - it was a new world: the Kinks, Sandy Denny, Small Faces, King Crimson, the Moody Blues, Gerry Monroe .... and the weird and wonderful world of Delia Derbyshire

Life was never going to be the same again ... OK so I slept through the 80s

But that's my story and I'm stuck with it ... 

About 64 - I was about 6 or 7 and Mum already had me at piano lessons but truth was I preferred Dad's jazz. Then I saw Ready Steady Go - I'm sure I fancied Cathy McGowan and I saw the Who and later Spencer Davies and that was it.

Strat

Children's Favourites on a Saturday Morning - early 60s - classics like the Runaway Train and Little Brown Bull

1977 - ELO - Out of the Blue. The first LP I ever purchased, Played it over an over until I knew all the words of every track. Still know most of them now. Never tire of hearing side 3, concerto for a rainy day. Classic!

Hi happy musical weekend everyone.

When I was eleven bought my first single Buddy Holly Peggy Sue got married, on a holiday in sunny Bridlington. Before the invention of spending money listened to Childrens Favourites on the radio Michael Holliday 'The Runaway Train' top tune +  The Laughing Policeman still makes me cry with laughing. 

Graham

My Dad used to buy me the songs I liked from Slade, Suzi Quatro, Mud, Glitter etc in the glam years but first albums I bought under my own steam were in 78, Blondie Parallel Lines and Chic C'est Chic in Harrods.

To frame the discussion, I was born in 1959 (in the States).

The first memories of my own interest in music are of owning many original Beatles 45's -- She Loves You, I Saw Her Standing There, I Want To Hold Your Hand, etc etc.  Yes, I was a precocious young child, and very fortunate to have parents who would buy those 45's for a 3 year old child!!

Then I jump to remember owning the 45 of Light My Fire (as an 8 year old).

My first rock concert was Supertramp (Even in the Quietest Moments, 1977, as a high school senior.)

I have been exposed since early childhood, but the first tape my parents bought me was of Wilhelm Kempff playing favorites by Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert and Mozart - I must have been around 1980, I was 6 or 7 years old. Still have the tape although it is not in good shape from being played too often. This were slow until 1990, when I got my first Philips stereo set to play the Maazel "Aida".

EJ

There's not much that would beat that.

Hi Strat

Also my mum took me to see Roy Orbison at Sheffield City Hall at about the same time (cool mum). As a matter of interest  something along the lines of this post. In Stuart Maconie's brilliantly funny book Cider with Roadies he has a chapter on his mum taking him to see the Beatles  at the ABC cinema Wigan in 1963 when he was three years old.Wonder if anyone here can top that?

Graham.

I stumbled on Black Sabbath when I was 14, that kind of changed  my life.

I remember when I was about 13 years old my friends and I recorded over a Cliff and the Shadows recording. First attempt wasn't very good so we lowered the volume of the voice over. This was repeated on further attempts, until we were happy with it. We suddenly realised we had lowered our recording level to such a point that virtually only the Cliff... recording was audible.  Plonckers or what!

Next recall was at a local dance, Chubby Checker "Lets Twist Again".

My first real appreciation was the first Rolling Stones LP: King Bee Baby,O' Carol etc.