Monday, August 12, 2013

the first records I purchased for myself: Saturday Music Club on Monday

The first recordings I purchased for myself...all the albums were cut-outs when not discount items initially (Pickwick). I had only so many $2/3 allotments in the early/mid 1970s.


The flipside of this sole 45 was a cover of "Barefootin'"...





1958. Emus was apparently more a d/b/a pseudonym than division of the
shady Roulette Records (see any account of payola).
 
I'm not sure where I first saw Steinberg, but I was happy to find this
for only a few bucks in a Grant's or Woolco or perhaps K-Mart...
Oddly enough, w/o credit anywhere, the LP appended several short
orchestral works by Mussorgsky and Ravel.




























I though of Pickwick at the time as the "paperback" record company.
Certainly their discs were thinner and more easily bent than anyone
else's...


...So, what were your first purchased records? 45s, LPs, 78s perhaps (they did last through the 1950s into the '60s), cassettes, CDs? I can only guess that more readers now first purchased a download (the rare one that couldn't be had easily for free) than have ever bought an open-reel tape or 16rpm vinyl disc...

4 comments:

Charlie Ricci said...

Family had given me records as gifts but the first 3 records I ever bought myself were "Downtown" by Petula Clark, "Love Potion #9" by The Searchers, and "Eight Days a Week" by you know who.

Todd Mason said...

Well, inasmuch as my parents had a recording of "Eight Days a Week" by Enoch Light and the Light Brigade but by no one else, some confusion might arise! Good trio, though, Charlie. My parental purchases included such items as the first SESAME STREET soundtrack album, AESOP'S FABLES THE SMOTHERS BROTHERS WAY, and a few folk-music records aimed at children.

Kelly Robinson said...

My taste was not very well developed when I bought my first single with my own money (though I owned lots of records that my mom had passed on to me): Heart's "Barracuda."

Todd Mason said...

There are so many worse choices you could've made, Kelly...and I certainly enjoyed going through my parents' records as well as my own and those I picked up at the library and dubbed onto cassette...