I spent my childhood surrounded by music. It all started for me in 1962 when I was four years old. We were on a family holiday at Wallis’s Holiday Camp, Cayton Bay Nr Scarborough and I was fascinated by the jukebox in the coffee bar on the site. It is a very vivid memory of red and yellow chequered Marley tiles on the floor of the coffee bar, pink, yellow and blue table tops, and this chrome and neon tubed monster blasting out.
The mechanism was a wondrous sight for a four year old and I remember a couple of teenage Teds lifting me onto a stool up against the juke box, so I could see the mechanism easier (with mum and dad’s permission of course)
The record was, “The Young Ones” by Cliff Richard, on the green Columbia label. I also remember “Walking Back To Happiness” by Helen Shapiro, “A Day At The Seaside”- Vince Hill, “Come Outside” - Mike Sarne & Wendy Richard, “A Picture of You” Joe Brown & The Bruvvers, “Island of Dreams” - The Springfields” “Dream Lover” Bobby Darin, and “Let’s Twist Again”-Chubby Checker featuring heavily on the coffee bar playlist.
Later around 1963/64, my aunts & uncles who were all into music played stuff like “Bits & Pieces”- DC5, “Do You Love Me” Brian Poole & The Tremeloes, “Da Doo Ron Ron”- Crystals, “She Loves You” - Beatles, “ I Only Wanna Be With You” - Dusty Springfield, “Little Children” - Billy J Kramer, etc on various valve radiograms.
My Parents had a KB Junior valve radiogram and were a bit older, so Johnny Dankworth, Ted Heath, Earl Bostic, Bill Haley, The Crickets all on 78s used to slam down on top of each other on the BSR autochanger. Sometimes two at a time, or even better, whilst the record on the turntable below was still playing
Around 1965 when I was seven; Mum and Dad would go off to the pub, on a Saturday night leaving me and my sister, with babysitters, Christine and Ray. Chris & Ray were both Mods and used to bring their StaxMotownAtlantic 45s round to blast on the KB, which was my first exposure to Soul music. They also had stuff by The Beatles, The Stones, The Who, The Action, Spencer Davis Group, Zoot Money’s Big Roll Band, Georgie Fame & The Blue Flames etc etc. They used to let us stay up till 11pm; packing us off to bed just in time before Mum and Dad rolled back in. Looking back it was a fantastic musical education and gave me a love of 60s music, that still endures 50 odd years later. I love the music of that decade above all else.
The first record I bought for myself was Keith West- “Excerpt From A Teenage Opera” (Grocer Jack) then quite a long time after, The Hollies, “Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress” The the first album was “Slade Alive” followed by T Rex “Electric Warrior” then Alice Cooper “School’s Out” a strange album, with none of the rest of the tracks anything like the title track. “Billion Dollar Babies” was much more commercial and of course I lapped that one up, plus Pink Floyd DSOTM, Rick Wakeman, Deep Purple.
By the mid 70s I was pissed off with ‘boring’ music but never moved onto punk. Instead I went backwards in time to the 60s and got into Northern Soul, which grew from the 60s London Mod culture. I also got into the more current, Philly soul/disco stuff, chiefly in order to meet girls, then became infatuated with it. I spent whole weekends boogieing at various places such as Wigan Casino, Blackpool Mecca, Cleethorpes Pier, Sheffield Samantha’s and the KGB all-nighters.
I’ve stayed stuck in a 60s/70s time warp and though I have plenty of 80s stuff it rarely gets played. My first love is still 60s pop music, Soul, Jazz and blues. There is also smattering of Pat Metheny, ECM euro jazz, Smooth Jazz, Easy Listening, Euro Electro Lounge, and I still enjoy a bit of rock, when in the mood.
