First record you ever bought with your own money?

First record I bought with my own money was Stray Cats in summer 1981, I was 14.

A Carl Perkins EP from Tesco's in about 1969 ( I was about 11 or 12)
If I remember right it had blue suede shoes and about another 4 tracks on it.
When I first got it I was conviced it was a compilation,because I always thought Elvis did that one.
Carbon Cat UK

I had a very generous musical benefactor in my grandparents and parents, so I didn't have to pull together money for any music for some time. My allowances went straight to Big Jim, GI Joe, Jay J Armes, and the various MEGO superhero action "don't call them dolls" figures, baseball cards, and comic books.

My grandfather trolled farm and estate auctions for records and comic books, so as I child of the seventies I was raised on Golden and Silver Age comics, and a healthy dose of r&b, rock and roll, big band, pop, soul, and country 78s and 45s from the 40s, 50s, and 60s. Oddly enough, Grandpa never brought me any LPs. I always loved anything with horns, and my favorites from the auction stacks were Mel Torme's take on Malagueña (At the Crossroads) Buddy and Ella Johnson's Why Don'cha Stop It, and the flip side to James Brown's I Got You (I Feel Good): I Can't Help It (I Just Do Do Do). One 45 without horns I loved was Jim Lowe's The Green Door from 1956. I still want to know what's been goin' on behind the Green Door.

My favorite 45 as a six-year-old was Bill Haley's Don't Nobody Move. It's great little "freeze" game that my younger brother and I would bop around the house to. I remember thinking how cool it was that Happy Days used Bill Haley's Rock Around the Clock for their theme song. But when my parents tracked it down for me, it was an LP with some groovy 60s or 70s re-working of the tune. Booooo! They did that a lot, buying well-intentioned cheap knockoffs from the Pickwick labels and the like with crap bands covering the music of Elton John, or the Disco Duck series from Peter Pan records.

I wasn't completely a man out of time. I remember lobbying my parents for Paper Lace's The Night Chicago Died, Commander Cody's Hot Rod Lincoln, and a couple of weeks before Jim Croce died, I remember seeing an animated music video of Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown on the Sonny and Cher show and going to a department store with my mother the next day to pick it out. It was my first taste of flipping through the paper-sleeved 45s in search of a vinyl treasure. In retrospect, I'm a little surprised my mother let me have a record with the word "damn" in it. (Somehow, the Starland Vocal Band's Afternoon Delight entered my collection a few years later.) I actually remember the morning my mother tried to explain Jim Croce's death in a plane crash the night before. I was five.

After seeing one of Elvis Presley's final shows, and being completely absorbed with the wall-to-wall media coverage of his death, I think the first 45 I bought with my own money was the single Jailhouse Rock/Treat Me Nice. The Presley records I had before and immediately after that were bought for me. No, wait. Before that. It was Kiss's Hard Luck Woman, though I was partial to the B-side, Mr. Speed. Or was that a birthday present?

Ah, it's all coming back to me now. The first record I put my own money behind was a 1976 K-tel compilation of novelty records called Looney Tunes. It had Witch Doctor, Purple People Eater, Ape Call, My Boomerang Won't Come Back, Shaving Cream, and others, including Haunted House, by the late, great Jumpin' Gene Simmons. All stuff an 8-year-old would eat up.




Spot the Looney-billy

onefin wrote:

Its fun to see the lists of first............................. I have a question what would be the LP you are most embarresed of purchasing..................................... mine was shawn cassidy.................. sorry but I still tap my foot when I here Thats Rock and Roll

I refuse to be embarassed by any album I have bought.

Really? 'Cuz I probably have an Asia album I'd sell ya from 1982. It would purge me of my secret pop-prog-rock shame, and you could refuse to be embarrassed by it.

Wait. Nevermind. The garage sale got it years ago. Great. I confessed for nothin'. What can I say? It was the Heat of the Moment...

Pssst... I had the Shaun Cassidy album, too. C'mon! It was the friggin' Hardy Boys! If Lee Majors (The Six Million Dollar Man) had an album out at the time, I'd have probably bought that too! By the time his Hollywood Stuntman thing from The Fall Guy was out, the bloom was off the rose...

Da Doo Ron Ron Ron-a-billy

Hi Wildcat
You would'nt believe what I bought next
"I'm a Tiger" by LULU and then SUGAR SUGAR by The Honey's
Now that shows my age and (bad taste) at the time.
Yours cant be as bad as that
Take Care
Carbon Cat UK

45: Elton John, Crocodile Rock
Full Album: the soundtrack to the movie, Tommy

American Grafitti sound track

ppk

Thank you everyone for these little peeks into what makes you tick! Rick, thanks especially for sharing your story - quite an interesting read!

See kids, isn't this fun?

First record I bought with my own money was the first Aerosmith record.
I heard it on a 8 track in my future brother in laws hot rod Mustang and bought it the next day along
with Kiss 'Destroyer'...mid-late 70's...?
I was probably 13 and I'll never forget it...it started my love for music.

MATCHBOX:Matchbox lp...that was in summer 1980

First ever record was an LP by Rubettes, then every single and album from Showaddywaddy, mixed with The Clash, Stiff Little Fingers, The Undertones, Rudi, Ian Dury & The Blockheads until the arrival of the Three Messiahs from Long Island and the Rockabilly explosion from Engligh bands as well ie Polecats, Restless, The Stargazers, Blue Cat Trio etc etc.

Oh those were the days

Liam

45: Hellraiser - The Sweet.

First album. i am almost positive it was Watt by Ten Years After. Such a good album but no one has ever heard of them.

Must have been 7" by Elvis "Little Sister / His Latest Flame in 1978.
First non Elvis record bought was Racey "Boy Oh Boy and Matchbox "Buzz buzz a diddle it" if I remember right.