Albums Your Parents Instilled In You?

None. But they did introduce me to the Mills Brothers. And we had a stack of, wait for it, 78s laying around

 

Whenever they pulled out the record player when I was a kid, we each got a pick. Mom got either Waylon Jennings or Merle Haggard. Dad stuck on The Who. I begged for The Carpenters.

(I stand by my choice, FYI.) But Dad was all about rock and folk groups of the 60s and 70s (The Who, Simon & Garfunkel, John Denver, etc.) and Mom wanted 70s and 80s country. I now listen to it all.

 

Twenty years ago, I’d have been right there with the “nope,” but I find myself being comforted these days, as my dad gets older, by Willie Nelson’s “Stardust.”

 

They didn't play enough music but...Tom Jones, country such as Eddie Arnold, also Herb Alpert and Harry Lauder!

 

My mom raised me on 1960s folk and pop, particularly The Beatles. My dad was into country. They went on free dates to concerts in Central Park in the 1960s and 1970s.

I don't recall a lot of exposure to country music via NYC radio from childhood. I think most of the albums they'd play were probably my mom's.

We also went to the Young People's Concerts at Lincoln Center -- and I played piano and violin -- so I got a fair dose of classical music as well... but I don't know if my parents owned classical albums.

I still listen to 1960s folk and pop and a fair amount of 1980s country. But I added in a good dose of rap, mostly via Ralph McDaniels' Video Music Box on a random PBS station.

 

Laugh if you want, but my Mom and my aunt are big Barry Manilow fans. As they get older, I’m finding myself occasionally playing Manilow song on YouTube.

 

Mom loved Tom Jones and Englebert Humperdink; man I’m old I grew up with most of your parents” songs; Manilow Carpenters Tapestry.

 

The Johnnys, Cash and Horton.

 

That's a great album.

 

My parents were big country music fans -- though Mom said she wouldn't walk across the street to see Willie Nelson -- so I grew up listening to a lot of Johnny Cash and the Statler Brothers. And my folks LOVED Hee Haw, which I thought was the worst show ever. Now, however, I have a lot of respect for the music of Roy Clark and Buck Owens.

 

My parent's giant console was stocked with Mantovani, Perry Como, Nat King Cole, etc. I took my Mom somewhere and put in Emerson, Lake and Palmer, the piano solo, and told her it was Liberace. She loved it.

 

Now ... for traditional music fans, try "Pictures At An Exhibition." See if they hear the difference.