Music you had to listen to as a kid

[ivans82]

Parents didn`t have a car or a record player so had no steering towards any kind of music. Just listened to the radio and watched Top of the Pops which was all there was in the early 60`s .

[Click]

The parents used to always play The Carpenters on long car journeys, have fond memories of driving through various areas of Spain with The Carpenters playing in a car that was much too small for the whole family let alone putting luggage into it also.

[tonyXIII]

My parents never seemed to be music fans, so I didn't listen to music at home until I was a teenager. Years later, however, I discovered that my mum loved Nat King Cole's music. On the quiet, she had good taste did my mum.

Back on topic, we had to listen to classical music at secondary school. One day, the sadist of a teacher made us listen to something by Karl Phillip Emmanuel Bach. It was bloody awful! So much so that I have remembered that name so that I can avoid it.

[Bob8]

On 20/10/2019 at 20:07, Wiltshire Warrior Dragon said:

A pedant writes, Sedbergh was in the West Riding, not the North, though quite close to the North Riding, which took in Swaledale and Arkengarthdale.

I don't quite understand whether the OP is asking about music we had to listen to with the inference that this was a chore, or that we might have enjoyed it.  My mum and dad were into classical, mostly orchestral music; I liked some pieces and not others.  They also enjoyed opera, which I didn't like then and still don't!

I was trying to imply the music was foisted upon you. That might be partial chore or torture, that it was not voluntary is key. 

[Trevorkfevfan]

I realised in later years what good taste my old man had in music. Paul Robeson, Louis Armstrong, Ewan Macall, Lonnie Donegan, Ivor Cutler, even Bob Dylan and Huddersfield Choral Society (annual pilgrimage to The Messiah). Also used to drag me to jazz at the Adelphi in Leeds, brass band concerts and folk evenings! It always seems that these thoughts arise when its far too late to talk about them with him, would love to!

[Ullman]

On 21/10/2019 at 12:17, BryanC said:

"Sing Something Simple" in the car on Sundays. Sounded very like the Black and White Minstrels - I suspect they were the same singers. 

I remember the horror that was "Sing Something Simple". Found this quote on the Guardian website that sums up exactly how I remember it:

"If one were to define a vision of hell, it might be a perpetual Sunday afternoon listening to Cliff Adams's vocal ensemble singing something simple"

[bazzzz65]

On Saturday, October 19, 2019 at 12:18, Steve May said:

Gilbert and Sullivan.  

Could be worse.

Could have been Gilbert O'Sullivan!! 

[JohnM]

On 21/10/2019 at 18:08, Trevorkfevfan said:

…. a distant bell....

 

[JohnM]

5 hours ago, Ullman said:

I remember the horror that was "Sing Something Simple". Found this quote on the Guardian website that sums up exactly how I remember it:

"If one were to define a vision of hell, it might be a perpetual Sunday afternoon listening to Cliff Adams's vocal ensemble singing something simple"

Ah! Now I understand. I never did see any sense in a programme called "Sing Something Sinful" on a Sunday

[John Drake]

My mum was quite partial to a duo called Miki & Griff, and would often listen to an LP of theirs while doing the ironing (sorry about the stereotyping but this was the early 1970s and my mum did do all the ironing! ). I can't remember any of their songs, it was very old fashioned, middle of the road stuff.

Neither my mum or dad were remotely interested in pop music or rock n roll. My dad thought The Beatles were a bunch of long haired layabouts.

Mum also liked Doris Day, and I remember I'd always ask her to play 'the whipcrackaway song' as it was more fun than any of the others and I could do the chorus.

Frankie Laine is another I can remember.... especially Rawhiiiiiiiiide (more whips, what does that say about me I don't know, or my mum, I guess!! ) and Jezebel. I had no idea what he was singing about in that one, which is probably for the best.

One clear memory I have is of my gran buying a Tom Jones LP, but she didn't own a record player, so she'd bring it round to our house to play, and her favourite songs were Delilah and The Green Green Grass of Home.

The only bands my dad was into were brass or military ones. His only forays into a record shop that I can ever remember was to buy The Floral Dance by The Brighouse & Rastrick Brass Band when that became a hit, and One Day at a Time by Lena Martell. He used to like Olivia Newton-John when she did the country stuff early on, but went off her after Grease!

[Futtocks]

7 hours ago, Trevorkfevfan said:

I realised in later years what good taste my old man had in music. Paul Robeson, Louis Armstrong, Ewan Macall, Lonnie Donegan, Ivor Cutler, even Bob Dylan and Huddersfield Choral Society (annual pilgrimage to The Messiah). Also used to drag me to jazz at the Adelphi in Leeds, brass band concerts and folk evenings! It always seems that these thoughts arise when its far too late to talk about them with him, would love to!

Every professional or semi-pro trumpet player I know looks forward to the last few months of the year, because there's always gigs available playing 'Messiah' if they head North. Loads of performances, if your embouchure holds up to the workload.

It gets played a lot elsewhere in the world, but the North of England seems to have an especially soft spot for this particular oratorio. It has become a long-standing regional tradition.

[Bleep1673]

Gilbert & Sullivan (Which I still like)

Lonnie Donegan

Trad Jazz (Which I still Hate)

then when my female cousin came to visit to get ready to go out on a Saturday Night, whatever was on Radio 1 between 1968-1973

[ivans82]

i always feel sorry for children brought up in the eighties  , all that dross to wade through . The decade that never was .

[Stan Doffarf]

Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, Schubert, Grieg, Rossini etc. etc. I consider myself very fortunate to have been exposed to those masters at an early age. At the age of eight, Beethoven had two entries in my personal top five (the violin concerto and the fifth piano concerto).

Towards the end of the 1950s my elder brother began to smuggle Lonnie Donegan and Cliff Richard into the house.  This led inevitably to harder stuff, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, etc.

I was a teenager in the sixties, with all that that implies. As I say, I've been very fortunate.

[graveyard johnny]

2 minutes ago, Stan Doffarf said:

 

Towards the end of the 1950s my elder brother began to smuggle Lonnie Donegan and Cliff Richard into the house 

same here, later on my brother became an air steward and no charges were ever brought against anyone.

[Jeff Stein]

When we first got a car with a cassette player my parents raided the bargain bin at Woolworths and for years we had a rather random collection of The Three Degrees, songs from Disney films, 10 cc,  Manhattan Transfer and the Boston Pops Orchestra plays the Carpenters inflicted on us. I detest them all to this day. 

My other memory is the Sunday evening road trip from my Grandparents house in Milton Keynes back to Essex in the years before the M25 was opened. If we were lucky it was improved by Alexis Korner's blues show on radio 1. If we were unlucky it was the light operetta on radio 2 and the journey seemed to last for infinity 

[ivans82]

Strangely enough the Carpenters "Goodbye to Love " has a great guitar solo at the end , played by Tony Peluso , it just doesn`t fit in with anything else they did , but worth a listen .

[graveyard johnny]

there was always a copy at every ones house of the simon and garfunkle lp- "trouble over bridgewater"

[bobbruce]

Mine would be Dr Hook and anything early Queen. Whenever I hear these the first thing I think of is long car journeys. 

[jamescolin]

On ‎24‎/‎10‎/‎2019 at 18:13, bazzzz65 said:

Could have been Gilbert O'Sullivan!! 

I played in every G @ S musicals on stage. The music and words were great. 'Here's a first rate opportunity to get married with impunity and indulge in the facility of unbounded domesticity. You will quickly be parsonified , conjugally matrimonified by a doctor of divinity who resides in this vicinity.' The man who could put that to music was great!!!

[jamescolin]

Howard Keel, Dean Martin, Doris Day, Frankie Lane and Frank Sinatra. Now they were SINGERS.

[Denton Rovers RLFC]

Stuff like this, have no idea what the radio station was - possibly R.Humberside or Luxembourg, but we always had the 'wireless' on in the morning before school.  Also remember the Eagles, 10CC, ELO, ABBA, Elvis, T-Rex, Brotherhood of Man or Neil Diamond who my mum loved (and swapped my double ELO LP for a blummin ND greatest hits ... cheers mother!

 

[Denton Rovers RLFC]

1 hour ago, bobbruce said:

Mine would be Dr Hook and anything early Queen. Whenever I hear these the first thing I think of is long car journeys. 

When you're in love with a beautiful women is one I remember as a kid in the 70s, Ray 'patch' Sawyer died in January this year sadly.

[Niels]

10 minutes ago, Denton Rovers RLFC said:

When you're in love with a beautiful women is one I remember as a kid in the 70s, Ray 'patch' Sawyer died in January this year sadly.

I  remember reading that he made a solo album around that time. 

More of a country album than Dr Hook.

I dont know if you knew about it?

[Denton Rovers RLFC]

On 29/10/2019 at 19:01, Stan Doffarf said:

Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, Schubert, Grieg, Rossini etc. etc. I consider myself very fortunate to have been exposed to those masters at an early age. At the age of eight, Beethoven had two entries in my personal top five (the violin concerto and the fifth piano concerto).

Towards the end of the 1950s my elder brother began to smuggle Lonnie Donegan and Cliff Richard into the house.  This led inevitably to harder stuff, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, etc.

I was a teenager in the sixties, with all that that implies. As I say, I've been very fortunate.

I didn't get to hear any proper classical music until I was about 10 (1979), I'd heard some bits from Liberace but generally had no idea about it whatsoever but really wanted to learn to play violin, we had them at junior school but rugby always got in the way and I never learnt to play any instrument though could sing half decently BITD. I just found classical fascinating and got hooked with it along with heavy metal, Abba, Elvis and some other stuff. 80s music for me as a young teen was mostly garbage inane pop.