http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02452/nipper-the-dog-hmv_2452387b.jpg
According to the report, an HMV shop on Oxford Street in London played a crucial role in the launch of the Beatles in 1962. Today, competition in the market has rendered the company outdated and overpriced, despite its 'strong heritage'.
I started thinking about my own history with records... not that I was around in the 1920's, but I do remember snooping around the eaves of our childhood home where my mother had stashed away her collection of 78 records. Sadly, some were chipped or scratched and only became moreso as we took them out and played them irreverently as kids. Those records weighed a ton! In her collection she had many artists whose names I don't recall today, but I do remember how fond I was of the Andrew Sisters. I especially liked "One Meatball" and "Mr Five by Five"
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpZh7_pMdhw (listen to "One Meatball")
http://www.iansrecords.com/RPM/entry/1220/ ( Photo of "Mr Five by Five" original record)
In the house where I grew up, we had a 'hi fi' in the living room. It was like a credenza with a hinged top that opened to reveal the turntable, complete with adjustments for 78, 45 or 33 rpm records. We had to ask permission to CAREFULLY move the breakable items off the top of the hi-fi in order to play music. In our kitchen, we had a small radio perched among the figurines on the 'knick knack' shelf, but it was tuned into my mother's choice of music. She loved all the crooners - Dean Martin, Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Perry Como and Englebert Humperdink (!).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Jg-FQ-UB9g (Hear Frank Sinatra's "Moon River")
We kids had transistor radios so we could listen to top 40 music and Red Sox games in our beds or on the screen porch on summer nights. We never really spent much time in the car because my mother didn't have her license until we were well into high school, but when we did go in the car with Dad driving us to church or to visit relatives on the weekends, there was no question as to who controlled the radio dial in the car. How different that must sound to our own children today!!!
http://www.discovercircuits.com/dc-mag/Issue_12/Photos/car_radio.jpg (1960's car radio picture)
When the Beatles became popular in our household (thanks to Ed Sullivan), my mother gave us 3D cardboard framed portraits of our favorite member of the band. (They may been courtesy of the back of the Cheerios or Special K cereal boxes). My sister Tina had John Lennon, I had George Harrison and Cindy had Ringo Starr. I hung George on a nail on the inside of my closet door so he could greet me every morning with his smile.
http://0.tqn.com/d/classicrock/1/0/X/J/meetthebeatles.jpg (Photo of Meet the Beatles album cover)
One of Tina's first albums was the Kingston Trio http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRN-XgnMn7g. This wasn't my style of music but one learns to appreciate it when that's all you hear for weeks. I think she then moved on to the Mamas and the Papas, Carole King and Meet the Beatles. Thank goodness she was my older sister and she brought that music culture to our house, or I might have been the Motown Queen forever!
I was enamoured with the Motown Sound. Those Four Tops had their moves down! My first 45 record was 'Bernadette' by the Four Tops. I loved the Supremes (Stop! In the Name of Love) and Dionne Warwick (You'll Never Get to Heaven), two of my early purchases. There was a store in downtown Springfield called Kresge's and in the back was the record section. There were so many records in paper sleeves, all filed alphabetically, and you could look through them for hours. I liked to look at them but never really owned many 45's - I didn't have much disposable income until I was older.
http://vintagetoledotv.squarespace.com/other-vintage-print-ads/single-gallery/9585064 (ad for record sale at Kresge's)
Instead I got my music exposure from watching American Bandstand every Saturday, watching Ed Sullivan on Sundays and of course, the Lawrence Welk Show (we only had one TV so we watched what our parents watched at night!). No MTV until I was in my 20's and living on my own...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJ0_gbofahM (See the Four Tops perform "Bernadette" on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1967)
My parents gave me an album on Christmas Even when I was in seventh grade. On Christmas morning I started playing The Association on the hi-fi at around 6 am... over and over again, until everyone was up and made me stop spinning Precious and Few, Never My Love and other Cherished songs so they could resume the Christmas tunes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrr1cSUYLqg (Listen to "Cherish" by the Association)
I do think they should have given me a record player to avoid the music conflicts that ensued. Although we were a total of five years apart in age, we really developed our distinctly different tastes.. while Tina seemed to be adding to her folk tastes with artists like Judy Collins and Joanie Mitchell, my younger sister Cindy went in another direction, with The Monkees and Neil Diamond!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfuBREMXxts (See the Monkees' official music video of "I'm a Believer")
I have always loved Christmas music because it was so ingrained in my childhood. Every December, we brought out my mother's albums from the hall closet and played them on the hi-fi. There were only about six albums, but as I created my own extensive collection of Christmas music as an adult, I made sure I included those same albums (by then mostly CD versions) for my own collection - Andy Williams, Barbara Streisand and the Goodyear Christmas Collection (now part of the Time-Life series only available on late night TV). I admit that I passed on the Ray Coniff Singers although I can still hear their cheerful choruses on the radio today.
http://coolalbumreview.com/?p=25933 (Read about and listen to Andy Williams Merry Christmas album)
My love for many different music genres grew with my album collection over the years. I stored my collection of hundreds of albums in plastic milk crates, but as we know, the recording technology was changing. When CD's became available, I started replacing my 'classic' albums with CD's. (Oh the joy of not having scratches and skips in my favorite over-played songs!) The milk crates were stored away in the eaves of our post and beam house on High Street,, where our cats liked to sharpen their claws on the tightly packed corrugated pattern of the album covers.
(insert picture of Mona the Cat)
One spring weekend in the late 1980's I carried the crates, all frayed from the cats and scratched from years of playing, to my neighbor's yard sale, where a man came and bought the whole lot for $80. It was a sad day to have someone take the entire collection of my music in one single transaction. So began my collection of CD's. And the day came when we purchased a Sony CD player - not a single player or 3 or 5 disc player, but a 400 disc carousel with player!
http://archive.pennysaverusa.com/storage/aadpsusaprod/2012/01/08/18/08/advert-25100600-0-400x400.jpg (picture of the Sony 400 jukebox)
Today my music is all on in my itunes library and the carousel is out in the garage. I have a few CD's in my car but I just don't buy many new CD's today. I still love music; that has not changed. But now I can listen to music channels on Pandora. I can share music files with my kids. I can use Shazam on my iphone to find out the name of an artist and listen, watch and search artists on youtube. Yet, with all this wonderful access to so much music, it is still sad to hear the news of HMV closing its doors. I know the joys that record collecting brought to my life, and this is something my children will never have a clue about, in our world of 'on demand' everything, including music.
http://78records.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/hmv-logo.jpg
