Start from your earliest influences . . .

[Mark Gunter]

I thought it might be interesting to share our musical influences . . . starting from childhood!

As a child I remember Daddy on guitar, uncles on guitars, banjos, piano, family singing old songs "She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain" - "Ol' Dan Tucker" - "Oh Susanna" etc. and hymns, and we sang along to records or played songs from them, stuff like
- Homer and Jethro
- Hank Williams
- Burl Ives
- Tennessee Ernie Ford

As a teen, for me it was The Beatles, The Moody Blues, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Smothers Brothers, Richie Havens

As a young adult, Rare Earth, Grand Funk Railroad, Charlie Daniels, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Jerry Jeff Walker, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Clapton, BB King

As an adult, Robert Johnson, Bo Carter, Leadbelly, Blind Lemon J, Blind Willie McTell, Doc Watson, Woody Guthrie, Jimmie Rodgers

Lately, Sam Bush, David Grisman, Chris Thile, Del McCoury, Vince Gill, Ricky Skaggs, Norman Blake, Tim O'Brien

My interests have changed and expanded over the years, and those are just major influences, but lately I've come to realize how much impact the country singing and folk and country records of my childhood shaped my musical journey. How about you?

[jaycat]

When I was about 11 years old, I was in the shower when I first heard Roy Orbison coming out of the transistor radio in the next room. That was it, I was hooked!

. . . Smothers Brothers . .

and Allen Sherman!

[Tobin]

I grew up in a musical household. My mother played the piano at home and at church (and I inherited that piano when she passed). From my earliest memories, I recall going to good old fashioned tent revivals where gospel music was king. Not the "worship music" that seems popular today, but real gospel. My mother and stepfather were in a band named Victory that did 4-part harmony gospel music. I still have one of their albums on 8-track, still in the plastic and unopened. They would tour all over the state at revivals and worship gatherings, and I have very fond memories of going to bed as a kid while hearing them practice in the living room.

Other than that, my musical choices and influences throughout childhood and into early adulthood were rather poor. '70s and '80s heavy metal/rock, and then the whole 'grunge' fad of the '90s. Not even worth talking about.

[JKA]

Earliest memories of music and songs are, My Boy Lollipop, Old Shep, Deck of Cards, Puff the Magic Dragon, Little Boxes, Love and Marriage and then I remember hearing the Beatles on the radio for the first time singing She Loves You.

When I was about 14 I started to learn how to play the guitar and the first songs I remember learning were: Abaline, Black Girl,Tom Dooley and a song that began: Stewball was a racehorse, and I wish he was mine etc

It's all a bit fuzzy after that (apart from all the Beatles stuff I was exposed to) until T-Rex came along. Then I discovered Dark Side of the Moon, Simon and Garfunkel, James Taylor, Cat Stevens and Jim Croce. I also have vivid memories of hearing the Beach Boys, Glenn Campbell, Moody Blues, Bachman Turner Overdrive, Steely Dan and was a huge fan of Wings

Then an epiphany...Astral Weeks by Van Morrison (late to discover this amazing album...if I could only have one album this would be it)

In my later years I discovered all the great jazz guitarists and Americana/Bluegrass/Roots and world music

Now with the benefit of the Internet, and recommendations from friends I've found a wealth of great music that covers all genres and find it impossible to narrow down what floats my boat and inspires me...

What do I listen to now? Anything and everything but I'm a real sucker for a good melody and sweet harmonies

[AlanN]

As a teenager in the late 60's/early 70's, it was all that stuff around at the time. Then, when I started picking, it was the contemporary grass, then back to the older styles. Then, jazz, mostly 50's era. And have to thank Dawg for some of that, with the Tiny/Jethro record.

[Denny Gies]

You ask a lot from an old brain, however I'll try. Early on it was listening to my father's music; everything from Lawrence Welk to Tennessee Ernie Ford. Then came clarinet lessons, singing in school choirs, glee clubs and quartets. When I discovered the Rolling Stones my parents wanted to disown me. Beatles, Cream and then Led Zeppelin. Well, my wife finally had enough of me laying on the floor with a snoot full of beer, playing air guitar to Zeppelin turned up so loud the windows on the trailer shook.

She bought me a guitar and I tried to learn the Stones, Neil Young and such. Then one day in a used record store I was hunting for Zeppelin, Young and such. She comes over with an album and says "buy this one". I looked at it and didn't recognize any of the folks on it.

It turned out to be "Will The Circle Be Unbroken" and the rest is history. I am addicted to bluegrass and the mandolin. Have tried a variety of therapies and medications but nothing has worked so I just give into it.

[yankees1]

My earliest influence was at 63 ! My mom was a school music teacher and wanted me to play an instrument and sing and I wanted no part of it as I wanted to be the next Yankee outfielder ! Needless to say I didn't make the Yankees and should have followed her advice ! But, different flowers bloom at different times and it took me a long time to bloom !! Love music, singing and playing the mandolin ! 69 now and practice/play every day ! I wish she could see me now ! My biggest influence at 63 and now is Alan Louderman and Pete Martin.

[T.D.Nydn]

My father was a concert violinist and a jazz saxophone player, so as a child, I was exposed to a lot of that kind of stuff, the old man use to play slates!my mother use to play west side story and Allen Sherman records. Later on, in the early 70's,,what totally changed my life is when I first heard a guy named Billy Cobham, and the album was 'spectrum'....

[fatt-dad]

Burl Ives.

f-d

[AlanN]

what totally changed my life is when I first heard a guy named Billy Cobham, and the album was 'spectrum'....

Too wise. My college roommate in Saratoga Springs, NY had that record and it was great..Crosswinds, A Pleasant Pheasant. He also had George Benson's Body Talk, also great. Perhaps the earliest jazz records I got into with repeated listening. This was part of the CTI-era, which was a more electrified, highly produced sound.

[T.D.Nydn]

Alan,, yes, the man is a genius,with Tommy Bolin (rip) playing guitar on spectrum,,(but you knew this already)....

[UsuallyPickin]

Wow .... Ummm ... singing in church ... listening to Dad's Sinatra and Wills recordings ..hearing him play Under the Double Eagle.. .. choir and musicals in middle and high school, discovering Peter Paul and Mary, Simon and Garfunkel, The Beach Boys, The Beatles , C S N Y in the mid 60's to early 70's getting a classical guitar at age 13 66' or 67' and fingerpicking until I heard Will the Circle Be Unbroken and Doc's rendition of Black Mountain Rag, that was ear opening, getting a D28 , learning how to hang on to a flatpick... I over gripped for years, moving to Kentucky in 77' and falling in with a Newgrass / Bluegrass band .... I have since taken up with mandolin and fiddle, being the 12th guitar player at a jam drove me to it, playing banjo enough to have fun with it but not being a "real player"...... So yeah I'm happily hooked..... R/

[AlanN]

Sorry, got Crosswinds and Spectrum mixed up....heck, it's only been 40+ years....

Spectrum

Cobham's first album as a leader, in 1973--a jazz-rock classic. As on his slightly earlier outings with Mahavishnu Orchestra, Cobham dazzles with rapid-fire pyrotechnics. But, listening carefully, he also does his job of rhythmic support--for this, he calls on his roots in drum-corps and Latin timbale drumming. His compositions here set fire to a stunningly tight band. The scowling, scurrying, skirmishing performance by the late rock-guitar ace, Tommy Bolin, is particularly memorable. He merges beautifully with Cobham's Mahavishnu bandmate, Jan Hammer (Moog/keyboards), who eggs Bolin on with warp-speed synthesized guitar sounds. The band was just as involved rhythmically as McLaughlin's, but had a gritty rapid-transit flavor where Mahavishnu was in spiritual quest. --Peter Monaghan

Tracklist:
1. Quadrant 4
2. Searching For The Right Door / Spectrum
3. Anxiety / Taurian Matador
4. Stratus
5. To The Women In My Life / Le Lis
6. Snoopy's Search / Red Baron

2002 Atlantic Masters:
01. Quadrant 4
02. Searching for the Right Door
03. Spectrum
04. Anxiety
05. Taurian Matador
06. Stratus
07. To the Women in My Life
08. Le Lis
09. Snoopy's Search
10. Red Baron
11. All 4 One (out-take)

[JEStanek]

I'm a product of the 70s Funk my older brothers listened to (Parliament, Ohio Players, Commodores), The Cramps, the Smiths, The Chieftains, the Pogues, Tom Waits, Pink Floyd, Velvet Underground, Doors, Pixies, Siouxie and the Banshees, Bauhaus through high school and college. It's a broad range.

In middle and high school I often rode my bike with a walkman with Purple Rain on one side and Deliverance soundtrack on the other of a 90 minute tape.

It was Vince Guaraldi's Charlie Brown Christmas that got me into jazz. Watched it every year since I can remember, still do. Coltrane's a Love Supreme and Brubeck are a constant, too.

When we had kids, I got into Dan Zane's music a lot. Great stuff and inspired me to play. So did Nickel Creek. Working with a youth group keeps me connected to new music, some I like, some I don't.

[T.D.Nydn]

Vince Guaraldi,,charlie brown Christmas,,another brilliant genius,,that c.d. Put a hurt on me...

[AlanN]

Another early jazz thing for me

Swiss Movement is a soul jazz live album recorded on June 21, 1969 at The Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland by the Les McCann trio with saxophonist Eddie Harris and trumpeter Benny Bailey. The album was a hit record, as was the accompanying single "Compared to What", with both selling millions of units.

[Mark Gunter]

First song I learned to play on guitar was "On Top of Old Smokey", I was 12 and learned to play by appropriating my Dad's guitar, but it was hearing Richie Havens play "Here Comes The Sun" a few years later that really taught me rhythm.

It turned out to be "Will The Circle Be Unbroken" and the rest is history.

I've only recently discovered that, and don't know why I missed so much good stuff - but back when they hit the radio with their cover of "Mr. Bojangles" and made a big hit of it, I picked it up on guitar and harmonica and that one was my theme song for many years.

Kind of ironic - but I only just recently began to learn how to play chords on mandolin, and it was that song, Mr. Bojangles, the first I figured out chords for on mando. I have been a Jerry Jeff fan, but it's always been the NGDB version of that song that I've carried in my head.

[T.D.Nydn]

Alan ,,I'll bet anything that you really dug Larry Coryell and Philip Catherine!...

[Mark Gunter]

Burl Ives.

f-d

FD, I listened and listened, and sang along, must have worn out the grooves on the record. Then, when I started school, somehow I got the teacher to allow me to get up in front of the group (1st-3rd, one big room) and I sang a capella "The Fox Went Out On A Chilly Night"

To this day I don't know were I got the gumption and courage to 1) influence the teacher to let me do that, 2) actually get up and perform it like that. I remember doing it, and I remember some stage fright about it. Burl Ives inspired me to perform music at an early age, LOL!

[Steve Ostrander]

My first experience with music came from my father when I was very young. My dad was a very musical person, although he never mastered an instrument, but he was always whistling or singing while he was puttering around the house. Some of the songs I remember him singing are “Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue” and “That’s Where My Money Goes” and “The Wabash Cannonball.” Dad always had some kind of instrument around, like a uke, banjo, bongos, tambourine or an old guitar. I don’t remember him ever really learning to play them, but he liked having them around, and of course I was curious and would play around with them. The banjo was curious to me: was it a drum or was it a stringed instrument? I played it both ways.

When I was around five years old, my uncle gave me a collection of old 45 rpm records, mostly Jazz and R&B recordings. I remember listening to Fats Domino, Johnny Burnette, Eddie Cochran, Buddy Holly, Bill Haley and his Comets, Gene Krupa, Buddy Rich, etc. I used to put them on and try to play along with them. It wasn’t easy to do on a phonograph where you had to pick up the tone arm and move it back to hear a phrase over and over.

Around that time, in the early sixties, came the folk revival. We had some folk records including Harry Belafonte, The Kingston Trio, and The Village Stompers, and those records were a lot easier to play along with than Gene Krupa or Buddy Rich, I'll tell you that!

[allenhopkins]

1. Music all the time around our house -- with the exception of my father, who always projected resentment of an interest he couldn't or didn't share. (I could do a whole thread on that subject, but I'll spare everyone.) Methodist church choir, pop songs that had a sort of "folk" content (Ballad of Davey Crockett, Battle of New Orleans, and such). I have a trick memory for music and lyrics, always have; remember Wildroot Cream Oil commercials from 1955, and my sister and I at a picnic this weekend sang the first verse of Bella Notte from Lady & the Tramp -- also 1955 -- so it must be a familial genetic trait.

2. Folk revival: Kingston Trio, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Weavers et. al. I was at college in Cambridge MA early '60's, went to Club 47 frequently, saw a wonderful variety of folkies (Doc Watson's first college tour in 1963-4, e.g.). Found myself drawn to the bluegrass/old-time side, watching Charles River Valley Boys, Osborne Brothers, Mike Seeger, New Lost City Ramblers. In a very small minority of mid-'60's music fans, I disliked and resented the Beatles at first; when the Rooftop Singers' Walk Right In came off the charts, I felt an era was over. Spent a lot of my Army weekends (1965-7) at the Denver Folklore Center, working on learning to play the music I'd loved to listen to.

3. Back home in civvies, decided I wanted to play for audiences. Took up mandolin in 1970 'cause I'd inherited a Gibson A-1 from my grandfather's attic, to start a bluegrass trio with my brother and a banjoist friend. Have played steadily ever since, on a variety of instruments, in bands and as a solo: bluegrass, old-time, blues, Celtic, klezmer, historical songs, generic "folk." Worked with several singer-songwriters, recorded on maybe a dozen albums, currently play about 200 gigs a year -- largely for seniors, but also libraries, historical societies, coffeehouses, concerts, country dances, private events. Have accumulated maybe six dozen stringed instruments (all acoustic), as well as concertinas, harmonicas, and oddities like thumb piano (kalimba), "mouth bow," and such.

So, definitely a folkie, unschooled in jazz, classical and rock unless it has a "folk" feel. Limited in that regard, and by modest instrumental dexterity, but versatile if not virtuosic, and deeply in love with music for a half-century.

[AlanN]

in reply to: Alan ,,I'll bet anything that you really dug Larry Coryell and Philip Catherine!...

Yes, and still do. Plus, Lee Ritenour, Larry Carlton. Now, it's more the 50's/60's cats: Joe Puma, Kessel, Wes, Herb Ellis, Grant Green, Jimmy Raney, etc., plus the younger guys - Dave Stryker, Martin Taylor, Mark Whitfield, Ben Monder, Royce Campbell, many others.

[T.D.Nydn]

There are so many,,how about a guy named Roy Buchanan (rip) ,he was so far ahead of his time...

[AlanN]

There are so many,,how about a guy named Roy Buchanan (rip) ,he was so far ahead of his time...

Another hero. And let's not forget FZ...

[jaycat]

. . . (Ballad of Davey Crockett, Battle of New Orleans, and such). . . .

This seems like a good place to mention that my girlfriend is a distant relation of the Swamp Fox.