Do You Remember The First 45 You Bought?

Other than children's records, "Sugar Town" by Nancy Sinatra.

 

It was either Devil Gate Drive or Fox on the Run.

 

Let the record show that Nancy is 82.

 

Here it is....!!!

 

Very long ago, I was nine years old at the time I bought The Osmonds “Yo Yo” (I thought then - and still do - that they borrowed from “Day Tripper” for that one!)


Around that time I also bought :

Rockin' Robin - Michael Jackson
Hot Rod Lincoln - Commander Cody
I'll be There - The Jackson 5
Have you Seen Her - Chi-lites
Outta Space - Billy Preston
Isn't Life Strange - Moody Blues
Season of the Witch - Vanilla Fudge
Toast and Marmalade for Tea - Tin Tin
Joy to the World - Three Dog Night


Well , I grew up right down the lane from a record shop - a five minute-bicycle ride !

 

I wanted that one too but somebody told me “don’t even set a price”

 

I’ve given this some thought and I think I’ve only. Ought one 45 with my own money in my entire life; U2’s “Desire”

 

Indeed I do remember.

It was Paul McCartney, Coming Up. Radio played the studio version when it 1st came out, but soon they would only play the live version. I really liked the studio version, so I bought it. Still have it, with the picture sleeve

 

Yeah, well to me the old square designs were timeless, in that they connected the present to the past. Think of Jefferson Airplane, in full Revolution mode, shouting "Up against the wall!" on a record with that dog going around and around, the same label that Perry Como and Al (He's the King) Hirt rode to fame and fortune - yes, even Elvis - now Nipper is exhorting the kids to tear down the walls! Must have terrified the heads at RCA, but what could they do? Too much money to be made, and Hank Snow just wasn't raking it in anymore.

Of course, what they did do was drop the old logo and replace it with a "modern" RCA logo (which looked suspiciously influenced by San Fracisco psychedelic lettering as filtered through a three-martini graphic department), which was okay in its way, but wouldn't you know it, wasn't timeless enough and within a decade they brought the old mutt back to everyone's relief.

I repeat, the Apple label was interesting but had a "get back to the land" hippie vibe that was doomed to expire eventually. I don't miss it, but at least it was a standard, recognizable trademark. Now everybody has to do these gimmick labels, customized for every release. That was radical 60 years ago, when ESP was putting out Albert Ayler and the Fugs - now it just seems a shade indulgent.

 

While I do have a memory of possessing The Sweet’s “Little Willy” on the Bell label, I have a hard time believing I would have been able to buy that at age 6. It likely came from the older brother of one of my neighborhood friends. The first one I would have bought was most likely “Rock And Roll All Nite” by KISS, with the Alive version on the A side and the Dressed To Kill version on the B side. Either that or Alice Cooper’s “I Never Cry”/“Go To Hell”. Wait, maybe is was KISS’ “Detroit Rock City”/“Beth”. It was one of those for sure.

 

Olivia Newton-John's Physical. I saw her in Grease and had such a crush.

 

“Hot Rod Lincoln” by Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen

 

"The Entertainer" from the movie The Sting (which I have never seen). I was five years old.

 

The first "adult" 45 I bought (and still have after all these years) was " Windy" by the Association - They were also the first real concert ( in an auditorium ) that I got to attend ...

 

Waterloo Sunset by The Kinks

 

Squeeze - Cool For Cats, pink vinyl

 

On Christmas Day 1963 Santa came through with a Dansette record player and a trio of Parlophone releases - I Want To Hold Your Hand, Twist and Shout E.P. and the Billy J Kramer Hits E.P. I must have been good that year.

 

I was 4 years old in 1978. These were my first two (which my parents went out and bought these for my birthday):

My first single: "Magnet And Steel" by Walter Egan
My first album: "City To City" by Gerry Rafferty

The first single I bought with my allowance money was later in the same year (1978). I bought the 45 of Nick Gilder's "Hot Child In The City".

 

It was a Marc Bolan single, but one of the later rubbish ones, although it did have the special label. I may still have it somewhere.

 

Cliff Richard - Devil Woman

I was ten or eleven. My Mom was English, and when I told her I liked this song, having no idea who Cliff Richard was, she soon drove me down to the local Sam Goody and bought me the seven inch.

 

Telstar- Tornadoes, bought from the Shack, Cannock Road, Wolverhampton.

 

I'm not 100% sure, but the earliest memory I have of buying any record (actually, I picked it out and my mom bought it for me) was the 45 of "The Letter" by the Box Tops back in 1969 when I was six years old.

Purchased at Kmart in Orange, CA

 

When I was very young, I listened to my mother's or family's records. The first record that was actually mine was given to me as a gift at Christmas 1962 when I was five years old. It was the 45 of "Little Drummer Boy" by The Harry Simeone Chorale. It wasn't so much that I wanted it, it was simply that my parents knew I liked the song. I still have the record but not the sleeve.



However, the first record that I wanted was a Beatles record. I got it in late January or early February 1964. I first learned of The Beatles in January but I don't recall if I got the record before or after their first Sullivan appearance on February 9. The record was the "She Loves You" 45 on Swan Records. I still have the record and sleeve.



The next 45 I got was on Easter March 29, 1964. The Beatles "I Want To Hold Your Hand" on Capitol. This is a photo of me that day with the record. I still have the record and sleeve.



The first album I ever had, I got on April 14, 1964. My 7th birthday. "The Beatles Second Album". I still have it.

 

Le Freak - Chic
The single had just came out.
I was barely nine years old.

 

Millie 'My Boy Lollipop'