Musicial Selections from My Youth
'Some Childhood Memories' book addendum
Note: All audio is provided as Apple QuickTime files*
Personal musical influences from 1961 to 1979
Since such a large part of what was important to me as a youth related to my interests in music, I felt that adding a multimedia component to my 'Some Childhood Memories' book publishing effort would be appropriate. Therefore I have provided these selections of my musical influences from 1961 to 1979. Here is a description of the musical selections found below – sit back in front of a good audio system or put on a set of headphones and turn back the clock to the music which defined my youth:
Bulk ZIP File for download
Right-click on the link below and select 'save link as' or 'save target as' (browser dependent) to download a ZIP file containing all tracks listed below, as part of a single, large file that can be uncompressed back into a list of individual tracks that can then be imported into the iTunes media player application on your computer, and burned to CDs, etc. as required (once you unzip the files into a temporary directory, just drag that directory into your iTunes library and they will automatically be imported):
Some Childhood Memories CD Apple iTunes AAC files (ZIP file containing all 12 tracks, 2 hours of music, 114MB)
Individual Tracks you can listen to without downloading
Left-click on any of the links below to individually listen to each track:
CD #1
Medley of my parent’s records:
Other than my Dad’s 78rpm selections of Concert band and Dixieland jazz music, the popular songs of the early 1960s that I remember my parents playing on their original monophonic Philips ‘tube’ audio system were some of the songs included on this track. Mom and Dad purchased an Electrohome ‘transistor’ stereo system in the late 1960s, and they bought a number of new 12-inch LP (long play) 33rpm records at that time as well:
The Beatles 45rpm single “She Loves You” / “Can’t Buy Me Love” (1964); and
Lulu 45rpm single “To Sir With love” (1967)
Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass
Floyd Cramer
The sound track from the movie “Sound of Music” (1965), and finally
The Beatles - Sergeant Pepper’s Heart Club Band (1967)
Medley of my brother’s records:
Older siblings help forge a path for younger children to follow on and Douglas certainly took the lead in the music department on my behalf. Here’s only a partial list of the great musical groups and albums that Douglas exposed me to:
The Beatles – Abbey Road (1969)
The Beatles - Let it Be (1970)
Chicago - Live at Carnegie Hall (1971)
Chicago – Chicago Transit Authority (1969)
Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon (1973)
Pink Floyd - Wish you were here (1975)
Yes – Fragile (1972)
Rick Wakeman – 6 Wives of Henry VIII (1973)
Frank Zappa – Apostrophe (1974)
ZZ Top – Tres Hombres (1973)
Mahavishnu Orchestra - Visions of the Emerald Beyond (1974)
Peter Frampton – Frampton Comes Alive (1976)
Genesis – Trick of the Tail (1976)
Piano/Keyboards - Selections of my own music:
The advent of the LP 33rpm format encouraged musicians to produce “album concept” recordings – often including songs that ran the length of the whole side of the record which could be as much as 22 minutes long. This was one of the reasons why FM album rock broadcasting took off. For decades AM broadcasting had been formatted around the two to three minute “single” 45rpm recording technology, and people started to become interested in listening to LP songs on the radio – hence the move to stereo FM broadcasts.
Unfortunately, this trend lasted only for about ten years (the 1970s decade) as current broadcast industry trends are now firmly back into singles of three to five minute lengths (on average), even though the CD format allows for up to 74 minutes of total music playing time. In my high school years I got into the habit of sitting down and listening to a whole album from end to end. There wasn’t much use listening only to one or two songs as you would miss the point of the album concept – the record was produced to make an artistic statement as a whole.
Here’s a small sampling of the artists and albums that my friends and I discovered and listened to most often:
Elton John – Honky Chateau (1972)
Elton John – Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy (1975)
Billy Joel – Piano Man (1973)
Supertramp – Crime of the Century (1974)
Gino Vannelli - Storm at Sunup (1975)
Gary Wright – Dream Weaver (1975)
CD #2
French Horn / Classical:
Track 1 - Mozart Horn Concerto No. 3
Track 2 - Mahler Symphony No. 3
Track 3- Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 5
Jazz:
George Benson – Breezin (1976)
Chuck Mangione – Feels So Good (1977)
Joan Armatrading – Show Some Emotion (1977)
Billy Cobham – Crosswinds (1974)
Return to Forever – Romantic Warrior (1976)
New Age / Alternative:
Jean-Michel Jarre – Oxygene (1977)
Premiata Formeria Marconi – Photos of Ghosts (1973)
Frank Zappa – Studio Tan (1978)
Devo – Q: Are We Not Men (1978)
The Cars – The Cars (1978)
Soft Rock:
Steely Dan – Aja (1977)
The Little River Band – Help is on its Way (1976)
Loggins & Messina – On Stage (1974)
Hard Rock:
Boston – Boston (1976)
Black Sabbath – Sabotage (1975)
Van Halen – Van Halen (1978)
AC/DC Highway to Hell (1979)
* Audio files are encoded in Apple iTunes/QuickTime AAC format (128kbits/s). If you do not have Apple QuickTime installed, you can download it from: www.apple.com/quicktime/download
If you are using a Windows PC running Internet Explorer, and you are having trouble playing web videos that don't conform to Microsoft's Windows Media Player file formats, then try a better browser that is free, standard's based, and very powerful - and one that works well with Apple QuickTime videos: Firefox. Download it here: www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/