Ikouja
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Actually I always listened to all kinds of music. It comes of having a dad who played in the RAF Wooton Bassett Dance Band in WW2 and belonged to "Classics Club" (so Sunday mornings were always something like Mozart). I think the first record he ever bought me was Harry Belafonte's Jamaica Farewell / Banana Boat Song. Dad was also a keen cricketer, and we would both sing Lord Beginner's "Victory Test Match" ("Cricket lovely cricket, at Lords where I saw it...") which is probably my first-remembered calypso.
I remember one day he came home with armfuls of records he had got from a friend - the friend was a whoesaler and was having a clear-out. There was shedloads of stuff, loads of jazz. I remember finding an EP of the "Modern Jazz Quartet at Music Inn" which was a knock-out!
My mate next door was a couple of years older than I was, and all of his mates in the early 60s were mods. They half-tolerated me and half took the pi$$ out of me, and I used to break my adolescent heart over their girlfriends! But one thing they did for me was to clue me in to music - they were listening to Muddy Waters and so forth. I couldn't afford to buy the clothes (parents wouldn't let me anyway) but I could afford to buy records, and I came home with loads of stuff on the Pye International R&B label - Howling Wolf, Willie Dixon and stuff like that. I bought Bob Dylan's first album when I was twelve, and I bought "The Country Blues of John Lee Hooker" sometime later. Also when I was 12 I heard this incredible track called "Green Onions" with a guitar solo which was about eight years ahead of its time, and I bought that too. I was already into modern jazz - MJQ, Brubeck, etc - and R&B, and so Booker T and the MGs got me hooked on soul.
There was a record shop in Blackpool where the guy sold jukebox rejects. the shop was just a room with trestle tables in it, and small piles of singles sitting on them. They were cheap, but I picked up loads of weird and wonderful stuff. I remember finding Tommy McCook's "Ska-Ba", and a Jamaican EP of stuff by Millie Small, but also rare mod stuff like "Try It" by The Attack (incidentally, they brought out "Hi Ho Silver Lining" before Jeff Beck ripped it off).
That takes us to 1967, which is when I actually managed to get some decent clothes, go to the Twisted Wheel, pull birds, etc. All very hard work!
The rest I have been over a few times on this thread.
When the skinhead scene fell apart in 1970, I didn't really like much in the way of glam, prog rock, and so on, so I went back into jazz and, thanks to London DJ Charlie Gillet and BBC's John Peel, obscure music from all over the world. Charlie introduced me to Cajun music, for example, and I looked back for old Doo-person of Italian descent and R&B tracks. For a few years I even sang traditional folk songs and played a squeeze-box at folk clubs - I just liked MUSIC. My girlfriend had mainstream pop tastes, so I used to treat her to The Carpenters and Gilbert O'Sullivan gigs...
I guess if I posted a list of all the gigs I have been to (barring classical concerts) the list would amaze you...
The short answer to that is yes, but it wasn't really till the 1980s (by which time I had moved again to near Liverpool) that I ever went to "Blues Dances" in WI flats.
Wow, that was great just reading all that! I feel sort of like you, I've been getting into everything, I'll even go to stores and pick up real cheap obscure records, I've found quite a few gems (and quite a good bit of garbage). Reading this thread makes me despise the majority of modern-day Skinheads, they're almost all cut by a cookie-cutter, only listen to oi! and metal, shave their heads and wear band tee-shirts with soccer shoes year round, I feel like I'm in a totally different group...Makes me feel good that the original Skinheads were way cooler than they've become
PS. No offense to the true blue Skinheads of today (GetSmart to name one) but you are not the majority!