The only album that I ever permanently borrowed from my folks was The StrawbsGrave New World.
The Strawbs were completely off the radar for me and my friends in high school. We’d never heard about them, read about them, or heard their music. We’d heard of The Monks, who were kind of a Strawbs side-project, because of their hit “Drugs in My Pocket”, but we didn’t know they were connected to the Strawbs.
The only reason why I picked out “Grave New World” from my parents’ collection was because of the William Blake cover. It turned out to be one of those albums that drew me right in on first play. It didn’t have to grow on me, I loved every song right away. Total and utter love at first hearing.
To this day I’ve still never heard the Strawbs mentioned, except for once in a thread here, and once from one guy I met at a bar. None of my friends are into them. If I hadn’t have found that record in my parents’ collection, I never would have become such a fan.
My parents had Pentangle’s “Cruel Sister”. I loved the Albrecht Dürer cover so I ahem borrowed this album too, but I just couldn’t get into it, so I put it back.
My folks sold or threw away all of their records a few years back, so ironically the only album still in the family is “Grave New World”. Pentangle and the rest are all gone.
So what, are you a Hell-fire monster king piano player now? (It’s Liszt you’re thinking if, BTW) – cause if you can play that shit, you’re a fucking monster on ice. Party trick anyone can learn to do: that little thing starting on C# with the double octaves like in the Bugs Bunny cartoon – it’s hilarious! The rest of that is fucking hard, but Bugs was cool and didn’t care about impressing some Clifton Webb critic.
My parents were also pre-rock (records all Dad’s actually), and I never raided the collections … but my 20 year old second oldest son has, long after my Dad died, with his Grandmother’s permission (of course before her death). Jazz, show, comedy, blues, classical … Dad was pretty eclectic in his music tastes. Not folk or country though.
I was, like KneadToKnow, also listening to my older siblings’ music when young. And of course Dad had Whipped Cream and Other Delights too.
Imagine approx. 6-year-old Celt wandering the house singing at the top of her lungs “She wasn’t what you’d call a blushing flower, in fact I think she rented by the hour. . .”
I used to borrow some of my Mom’s 45s. Nothing stands out particularly in my memory.
As it so happens, my Dad died this week and as next of kin I will nherit his very large vinyl collection (though my Uncle has asked to grab a bunch). He was 60 when he died so his musical tastes probably solidified in the sixties. I know he liked the Beatles and Iron Maiden, and went to Woodstock. Any albums I should look into for awesome listening experience (or, though I doubt he kept the jacket sleeves in great condition, some osrt of collector’s value)?
My parents didn’t really listen much to records, although they had some in the bottom of the old console stereo/radio. One that I thought was cool had excerpts from different symphonies, etc. The one from Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and another from Mussorgsky’s Night On Bald Mountain got a lot of play by me. My stepfather was a bartender and really disliked having music on at home, but my mother was a jitterbugger from the swing era and liked the early rock music of the 50s.
Edit: Other tracks included a selection from The Nutcracker Suite, Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, and Ave Maria (right after Night on Bald Mountain).
All of them? Okay, I guess that isn’t helpful. I’d check out the oddball stuff you maybe haven’t heard of. I don’t know much about collecting, but I think a good, unscratched copy of It’s a Beautiful Day might be worth something, …and it qualifies as an awesome listening experience.
It could have been, but I don’t think so: I can’t remember the other tracks on it, but they didn’t seem to be from Fantasia, and I’m pretty sure the label didn’t have that name on it. There was no dust jacket. That’s a lo-o-o-ong time ago and a lot of beer under the bridge.
Oh yeah. I started going through my parents’ old records my sophomore year in high school. My mom had Led Zeppelin II. Changed my life. My dad had the Moody Blues’ Days of Future Passed. Likewise. Then there was Joe Cocker’s eponymous Joe Cocker!, and Aqualung, by Jethro Tull. They had the Beatles’ white album too, but that didn’t make as much of an impression on me for some reason. In any case, I feel lucky that I got to experience the tail end of the vinyl era with these records. By that time, everybody was throwing out their tapes and buying CD’s, so actual records were already old fashioned.
Tom Lehrer (all his albums)
Bill Cosby’s “Wonderfulness”
Herb Alpert’s “Whipped Cream and Other Delights”
A whole bunch of 45s that I can’t remember all of anymore.
My mom passed away recently, and when I went through her stuff with my dad, one of the few things I chose to take with me was a stack of her old scratchy 45s (she treated her records terribly) that reminded me of when I was a kid.
Well, I wasn’t going to mention my mom’s record collection, because it invariably brings up German militarism which brings up Nazism, and there goes another thread to Godwin. But dammit, German marches sound so cool! And anyway, Fehrbelliner Reitermarsch is pre-Hitler Kaiser Wilhelm Era
Aww, damn, faulty memory. Of course it’s Liszt [/facepalm]. And, no, there’s no way in hell I can attempt that piece, holy crap I don’t know how anyone could.
I would guess that: (a) the collection contains a lot of great albums and, depending on the condition, more than a few collector’s items; and (b) a lot of the aforementioned will be taken by your uncle. If you post a list, I and others would be happy to advise. (If it’s really that large a collection, maybe just list the first 50… should serve as a decent sample.)
From my parents, their collection of Simon and Garfunkel albums and Bill Cosby comedy tapes were the only thing that made an impression. Apart from that their taste in music was fairly lacking.
My first set of in-laws introduced me to Flanders and Swann, which might have been the best thing I got out of that marriage.
