What was the first full-length album you ever owned? For some, it was a vinyl LP while others may have bought a cassette or CD.
Back in the late sixties and early seventies, a Canadian company called K-tel sold a series of "best hits" LPs which featured popular rock songs of the time. Ads for these records bombarded the airwaves as each new release came out. "Original hits! Original stars!" an over-excited announcer bawled at the start of each commercial. Then he named each group whose music played in the background.
I was one of many teenagers who longed to have those records. In Deliverance from Jericho (Six Years in a Blind School), I wrote about one of those albums which I strongly desired. Here's how one K-tel release impacted me.
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While Mom and I spent the afternoon shopping, I begged her to buy me one of the K-tel records called 24 Power Hits. These compilation albums of current pop tunes were advertised everywhere and I felt I needed to have one. After Mom reluctantly parted with four dollars, I proudly carried my new album home. I spent much of the Easter holidays enjoying that record, listening to it almost continually on Mom's player. Whenever those tunes come on the radio today, they bring back the feelings and memories of that holiday.
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Deliverance from Jericho abounds with vignettes of what life was like in that government-run institution. These range from poignant experiences of homesickness to hilarious incidents of mischief. Please feel free to click on the link to my books or contact me directly for more information about them.
My first album was on an eight-track cartridge. When I was eight years old, my father gave me an eight-track player for Christmas. I could never understand why they were called eight-track cartridges since there were only four tracks, each containing at least three songs. Now that those of us who are visually impaired use the four-track cassette player for talking books and other materials, it's probably less confusing.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, one of the first eight-track cartridges that came with my new player was Simon and Garfunkel's album Bridge Over Troubled Water. I also got a tape of Chopin piano music and a Bill Cosby album. Later, my parents and others bought me albums on eight track cartridges by Judy Collins, Sonny and Cher, The Carpenters, and Three Dog Night, to name a few. Several years later, my parents bought me a cassette player and more albums on cassette. In college, they got me a CD player and of course, CDs. Those were the days.