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A Memory Test. Your First Record Purchase
Hello All,
Being part of this forum, your most recent album purchase might be MLT Play Beatles and More (both volumes). If so, you have excellent taste and you are a wise music buyer.
Moving now from the present to the distant past….
Can you still remember the very first single and/or album you ever bought? Here are mine.
I am probably branding myself the Methuselah of the MLT Club. The first single I ever bought (to my best recollection) was Donna by Richie Valens. The flip side was La Bamba. This would have been 1959. I was probably moved to get that because of the tragic news. And I also had a crush on a girl in my class named Donna.
Being the thrifty (cheap) kid, I only bought 45’s through my early teens. The first actual album purchase with my own cash ended up being two albums. I must have mowed a few extra lawns that week for such an extravagant expenditure. They were movie soundtracks and I bought them together circa 1964. Ride the Wild Surf (Jan & Dean) and Hard Day’s Night. Money well spent.
What are yours?
Seattle Bob
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43 Replies
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The first LP I bought with my own money was Business As Usual by Men At Work.
Still have that album tucked away somewhere.
The first single I bought was Computer Games by Misex. I doubt anyone outside of Australia or New Zealand has heard that one!
Cheers, Darryl.
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I can’t remember my first single or album purchase (Hey, I’m 60 for Pete sakes!) but it was most likely a Beatles single.
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I admit I could be the outlier here. Tommy, I’m older than you and hoping I can find my car keys this morning. But I still remember those records. Also my student I.D. # from 1967 and all the lyrics from El Paso by Marty Robbins. That’s the kind of stuff that’s floating around in my head. Darryl, you’re right. I’ve never heard of Misex. But I bought that Men at Work album.
Seattle Bob
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Well Bob, I doubt I’m as old as you and was definitely poorer in the sixties. The only 45’s I could afford were second hand ones from my school mates, probably six months after they were hits, that I paid 50cents for. The earliest was probably “Bend It” by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich.
The first album I bought was “Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band”. Being Australian I do remember Misex and Men At Work of course. When I first star
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Howard, it looks like you were cut off in paragraph 2. I hope you complete that thought.
As I recall, 45’s were like 79-cents (or something like that). And based on some of the vinyl I still have (with the price stickers intact), LP prices were around $3 or $4 in the early 60’s. Kind of expensive for a kid. So like you, my first ones were used too.
I remember trading some comic books to a kid in my neighborhood for a small box of miscellaneous singles. His older sister had gone off to college and left these records to him (or he helped himself). Anyway, I ended up with a bunch of Sinatra, Frankie Laine and Patti Page ….but also some semi-recent Elvis, Connie Francis and a few doo-wops. These were my first actual ‘rock’ records.
Seattle Bob
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In Australia in the sixties, single 45s were ten shillings before we converted to decimal currency in 1966 when they became one dollar, so I was paying half price for my 45s. Can’t remember how much albums were but I had to talk one of my brothers into going halves with me to afford my first ‘new’ record, Sgt Peppers. In our old (British) currency we had 12 pennies in a shilling and twenty shillings in a pound.
As for vinyl records, when I had to move as a young working man, I remember many of my albums being ‘appropriated’ by a brother who onsold some without my permission. I also remember a ‘mate’ in later life ‘appropriating’ at least two of my vinyl albums, without my knowledge at the time, one of which I had never seen another copy available before or since!
Then of course we had to go through the cassette stage and the CD stage. Now probably 90% of the music I listen to is via my iPhone and iPad or other downloads. I still have all the MLT CDs plus a vinyl copy of ‘Orange’ though as I just know this is going to be a valuable collectable one day. I’m really looking forward to their new originals album in the new year!
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Lol… I can’t exactly recall what was my first but I do have a couple of 45s that stand out that I still own along with a some albums… 45s…cassette tapes… cassette singles… 12 inch album…. Debby Boone’s ” You Light Up My Life .. Lol… ( sad Eh !… But back then I did like song….) Lol while the other weird one is ” Willie’s Yeller Pickup Truck”…. (or something like it… Truck is definitely part of title…) and I kept some of my siblings 45s .. Like Stevie Wonders… ” Sir Duke” .. I have eclectic music tastes .. Lol????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
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I was lucky because my older siblings bought a lot of records before me that I could listen to; Moody Blues, Pink Floyd, Supertramp, Beatles, Chicago, Hendricks, Led Zeppelin, Carpenters, Monkeys 45s etc. My first album that I went out and bought for myself was I think when I was about 13, and it was the Beach Boys 15 Big Ones album that was released in 1976.
I always liked the Beach Boys since a Grade 4 school party, when the teacher played a”Surfin USA” 45, and I remember that was the coolest thing I ever heard. Then in 1976 the Beach Boys remake of Chuck Berry’s “Rock and Roll Music” was a big hit on the radio at the time on the 15 Big Ones album, and it kind of sounded like Surfin USA again, so I got it. The Beach Boys wave really started for me at that point. Kids at school were into Beatles, so my early teens was a lot of Beach Boys and Beatles music.
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“Supertramp”! Now there’s another great band from the seventies, along with “Little Feat”. We were very fortunate to have the music we did in the seventies. Everything from pop, country, blues, hard rock, soft rock and heavy metal to disco, which spoilt it for me, but I was saved from disco by the punk and new wave era! LOL! ‘God Save the Queen’!
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Howard, yes the 70’s if you think about it was pretty diverse musically. From Beatles 1970 “Let It Be” to Blondies “Heart of Glass” and “Rapture” (Rapture was technically 1980). I remember Blondie was something else when I first heard her as she kind of started the 80’s sounds in the late 70’s, quite ahead of the times. Was great to see MLT meet Blondie recently.
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The First 45 I bought was the Beatles: I Want to Hold Your Hand/I saw Her Standing There on the Capitol ORANGE and Yellow swirl label and had the picture sleeve on it. Bought it at a Woolworths for 99c when 45s typically sold for 49c back then. Some of the other major acts 45s were probably more than 49c but I don’t think they got the premium that the Beatles got. It was not long before they appeared on the Ed Sullivan show and I was 8 years old. I think that 99c plus 3c sales tax amounted to about a month’s worth of allowance. Major purchase for sure.
The 1st album I bought was the Beatles “Second Album” which was the clever title Capitol actually put on it in the U.S. Great marketing don’t you think. There was a collection taken up by me and my 5 siblings to cover the whopping $4.97 cost for the album. The Beatles were still a bit of a mystery to my parents and the brothers and sister were afraid to buy it so they gave me the money since I was the bravest of the bunch to make the purchase without knowing how our parents would react to it.
This was after they had appeared on Ed Sullivan which we all watched in our house with our parents and I can’t remember if there really was any objection to their music from Mom and Dad but we grew up in a very conservative Irish Catholic household and the media input was carefully watched by the grown ups when it came to the kids.
I have no idea what happened to them but I know they got played to death on our Hi-fi until they skipped too much probably. Good memories.
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I had a paper route and I saved enough cash to spend it on my first full album after discovering my parents had an old phonograph stashed in the garage. Eagles, Hotel California in vinyl.
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The first album I remember buying was Born to be Wild from Steppenwolf.
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My first LP purchase is easy…….it was Meet the Beatles. I was 10 years old. My first 45 purchase is a little harder to remember. I believe it was Sugar Shack by Jimmy Gilmour. Don’t know why I bought it. It was a hit some time in 1963. Mike.
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Well, it wasn’t rock and roll, LOL. The first record purchase of mine was the album Ramblin’ Rose by Nat King Cole, c. 1962. I really didn’t get into Rock and Roll as my primary choice of music until the Beatles’ first Ed Sullivan show in 1964. The first 45 I remember buying was Baby Workout by Jackie Wilson, at about the same time.
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