Music was always a part of my life as it probably was with a lot of people my age back then. I would listen when I was alone mostly. One of my favorite memories was when I was by myself, with a handheld transitor radio, and listening to Wings' "Let'em In." It was a bright sunny day, I had nothing to do but listen to that radio, and when that song came on hearing Paul McCartney singing, I felt free as a leaf in the air. That memory has a pleasing affect on my mood....if I but settle my mind to think and remember it.
My cousin Kathy introduced to some rock music styles to me back in the early 70s. I remember being in her bedroom and she turned on some music and I was in some sort of Heaven. I learned that I liked all kinds of music over the years. My Dad had some record albums I would play all the time. One was the White Album by Johnny Cash. I learned a lot about Cash's style of country music. That stuff would stay with me all my life.
Dad had some Surfer dude music too. Maybe that was Mom's taste. When I was 10 my Mom decided that she was going to join the Columbia House music entity. There you would pick out 6 albums on cassette and get one free and be required to buy a few more. Each of us got to pick out what we wanted to listen to. Dave picked Elvis Presley's greatest hits. I picked out Captain & Tennille's album "Love Will Keep Us Together", Mom picked one of the Beach Boy's albums, not sure what Sandy picked out but I remember Debbie Boone's "You Light Up My Life" was one, and so was one of John Denver's albums. We all listened to these albums all the time. I got a cassette player for Christmas soon after we got these and had a blast with that.
We went on vacations and I took the player and the cassettes and played them all the time, even under my pillow when I went to bed. I was crazy in love with music of all kinds.
We got Shaun Cassidy's album that had "Da Doo Ron Ron" on it. Played that thing until it was unplayable I am sure. All the girls in the neighborhood came to our house to listen to music. And we once created a dance choreographed to some of his songs. All the girls raved about how cute Shaun Cassidy was. It is a fun memory of mine.
Until we got a stereo with cassette player, I used to record onto cassette anything I liked playing on the radio. Had to lean the cassette player up to the radio and hope no one made any noise in the background. I even recorded the entire movie "The Sound of Music" that way and replay all the cassettes, as it took more than one, under my pillow, memorizing lines in the movie and all the songs sung.
Finally we got a stereo with cassette player/recorder. I spent many nights and weekends when nothing else was going on, with headphones on and recording my favorite tunes on cassettes. I got pretty knowledgeable about brands of cassette tapes and how many songs I typically could record on one side, and judge it so I didn't have a lot of wasted space at the end of any side. Always listening to Casey Kasem's "American Top 40" on Saturday morning radio. And with the stereo cassette recorder, you didn't have to worry about background noise, it only recorded what was broadcast on the station. I used to clean the house and let it record things and then back up the tape and record over anything I didn't want. Yes I was the geeky freak about recording music, in high school.
Ah, and then the next favorite thing I used to do, when no one was home, was play the music I like and pretend I was on stage and sing aloud and pretend I was performing. I mostly liked to pretend I was the lead singer, but sometimes I liked to sit and pretend I was playing the drums too. I loved to pretend I was doing a benefit concert and money made at the event would go to support a charity.... That's just how I always thought I would like to use any talent I had like that. And truth be told, all these years later, on occaision when my husband isn't home, I will do this sometimes. Not much dancing anymore, the ole back is not what it used to be. But singing and pretending to be on stage, yeah, still do that sometimes. I believe this is the first and only time I am admitting I do this. LOL
We teeangers would debate a lot which radio station was the best. There were the KSHE95 followers, and the KWK followers. Me, I have always been a radio dialer....when a comerical came on, I would dial into some other station, I just wanted tunes to play. I still do that now, but technology is different...so that is not always an issue anymore. I'll pick up that topic in a later post. KSHE is still on the air....that station is as old as me, but KWK has been long gone. We have The ARCH now in its place. I like both still...but The ARCH plays more genres than just Rock and Roll as KSHE still does. And the classical station is not on the main stations, you need HD radio....yeah, I have more to talk about that whole issue later. LOL
My first car didn't have a cassette player in it, which was an ultimate bummer. I purchased a portable player to listen in the car that way, but driving on the highway made so much noise, couldn't really hear it. Then my Dad started borrowing my portable recorder, after he went back to work and I ended up giving it to him. It made him happy to listen while making biscuits or whatever he was making in the morning at the restaurant. I always thought that was funny, him liking to listen like I did. Now I think that was really neat, I was like him that way....loving music.
