Music that shaped your taste in music

Kind of strange thread title I know. My question and this is kind of subjective due to our ranging ages. What album or artist hooked you and shaped you musically. What artist grabbed you and made you their own. My first concert was Elton John in Greensboro in 1974 but I have seen Carlos Santana 12 times in concert and have never been disappointed. As the youngest of 7 kids with a strict rule of "Don't touch the stereo" from older siblings I listened to everything from Bob Dylan (hate for the most part) to Stevie Wonder (master) from Public Enemy (genius) to Beatles (see above). But if I had to name a couple of artist that grabbed me and spoke to me it's the Who and Jimmy Hendricks. Hendricks was just so different and awe inspiring. This guy was so effortless in his playing and lyrics. He was just phenominal live (I bet). The Who. Saw them three times with Keith Moon once and w/o twice. So much damned energy and Pete Townsand was fantastic. John Entwistle the stoic bass player and Roger Daultry the ever flamboyant front man. So hard not to say the Stones or Led Zepplin but I absolutely love the Who and Hendricks.

 

i mostly listened to the radio as a kid and wasn't really into music much. dad was big into charlie pride, herb alpert and nat king cole. mom was an elvis, sinatra and smothers brothers fan. though neither listened to their records and tapes much. mostly just pulled them out when throwing a party. first group to really catch my ear was the beatles; later on it was 10 years after (might have been the first eight-track i owned), the doobie brothers (two best/funnest concerts i ever went to), j. giles, zz top, steve miller, eagles, nilsson and paul simon. always luved bubblegum pop -- ringo starr's "photograph," the carpenters, lobo, the archies and bread. yes and i loved three dog night. though i tried cuz it was cool to do so, i didn't much care for hard rock. alice cooper was the first "hard rock" group i honestly got into -- course it coulda been lust as that was my girlfriend's favoite group. things were confusing at that age. aerosmith was the only hard rock band i ever saw in concert. freddy fender and david allen coe got me hooked on country.

 

I suppose my formative years for music were mid to late eighties, though must of the music I embrace now is from the early ninties.

I grew up with two older brothers and listened to a lot of Boston, The Cars, The Outfield, Skynyrd, 38 Special, and Thin Lizzy.

After that I found myself into Extreme, Better Than Ezra, Saigon Kick and a little known band named Paw.

Now I have followed the splinters from Extreme ie, Tribe Of Judah, Mourning Widows, Nuno Bettencourt along with various others, as we speak I have around 14 gigs of Mp3's.

 

First off, not a whole lot of the music I've played, listened to, or discovered hasn't come from the recommendation, mention, or just plain listening of someone I know. Good or bad, we get our music from various places, and those that I share music with are bonded closely to myself.

As well, if you follow music closely enough, you can tell who a lot of artists and their collaborators have followed. First time I really heard Tower of Power I noticed some really funky shit in there. Same with Steely Dan. And the thing is, one got something from another, directly, and the end result is it all traces back to James Brown, that one thing that they both borrowed. And JB didn't write that. Hell, JB improvised a lot of lyrics. He had to learn his songs off his records to tour. And the bass lines that were funky as hell? Came from either studio musicians or cheap up and comers who were hired on because of innovations that may have been picked up at a club.


Blah blah blah blah. I know, I'm getting on with it.

I started out with oldies from my parents. When I was real young, there were things an overactive imagination would scare into a kid. So I listened to music to get me to sleep. And I ended up turning it to what my parents listened to, because it's what I knew. I enjoyed listening to the Doors, and the things with horns and orchestration. I loved Motown Mondays, when they'd play more black acts, and didn't like the acts that were so popular like the Beatles. Those also had horns, and better rhythms, and different styles. And the old stuff that I asked about, that sounded like other acts, some of them white, my father told me that was because this music had been there first.

As I grew up more, I inevitably turned to Country, and enjoyed the bluegrass harmony and the tonal colors of the instruments like the steel guitar, fiddle, and banjo. And then I moved on to the end of the alternative rock craze when 106.5 moved to that format. I didn't listen to it before then, but it was something different, so I went with it.

When I first heard Hendrix it explained Rock to me. Hendrix is, to me, messiah of all rock that came after him. He didn't create it all, but he created enough to set the wheels in turn.

In college I picked up tons of things I'd never even thought to hear. Lesser known funk, reggae, more R&B. Slower, more expressive, less commercial pop and rock recordings like Ben Folds Five or Dave Matthews. Expressive and bound-changing artists like Fiona Apple or Alanis Morisette. And tons of things that happened before I was born that I never would have discovered myself if I hadn't have had help. I can't believe there was a time when I didn't know Marley or Dylan (even though I only like an amount of his work), for instance.

Of course there was that concert as a freshman in college, as I finally experienced B.B. King and the blues live. I'm very blues-oriented, both in my listening and playing preferences, and he totally opened it all up for me.


The one thing I did take upon myself for the most part was jazz. Charlie Parker's " ...with Strings" was something I picked up early on in college, and worked from there into the horn workings of jazz. It was lyrical as hell, had good backing arrangements, and he worked great with it.

Then as I moved into playing, I immediately got a lot more funk and R&B, and that still pushes my tastes.


As a musician, the people who shaped my styles of expression (excluding peers, for instance):

lyrically, Charlie Parker, Clifford Brown, Maceo Parker, the slower Dizzy Gillespie stuff, B. B. King, Ella Fitzgerald's vocals, phrasings of R&B singers like James Brown or Wilson Pickett.
tonally/technically: Gerry Mulligan, Harry Carney, Hawkins, Coltrane, lower voices of various vocalists.

 

i come from a musically inclined family...so mine is hard to say. my mom plays the piano. my dad had a good singing voice. my brothers and sisters all play a musical instrument or two. i used to wake up listening to my mom playing the piano. even now, when i go visit, she still would play sometimes...and i love listening to that. so i say i like the sound of the classic piano pieces. chopin, i am partial to.

later i listened to the beatles, cream, derek and the dominoes, (clapton, basically), carole king, ten years after, bowie, the stones, james taylor, king crimson, robin trower, thin lizzy. hmmm... then there was tom scott, steely dan, david sanborn, david benoit, michael franks, dave gruisin and joe sample and the crusaders. ooh, carly simon! almost forgot her. also ramsey lewis, george benson, bob james and earl klugh. hmmm...stanley clark. now i think about these...i love jazz. i am more jazz than anything.

then i went pop...omg, i had some phases! i listened to a whole lot of different stuff.

good lord magnus! wow. excellent!!! obtw, mine is not chronological...just off top of my head.

no wonder you were not talking mags! sheez.

 

I can identify with most of the posts here. I guess that I was all over the place, so to speak, as to my musical preference. I still am. Early on it was AM Radio of the sixties, and I mean EVERYTHING POP. I really love the early beach type music, black and white. Later in the seventies I tended to gravitate towards acoustical guitar type bands as well as your traditional rock. Neil Young is my all time favorite but he isnt the only one. I was and still am an Eagles fan. Others were The Beatles, Led Zep, Moody Blues,Bread, Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Kiss and The Cars. I know this sounds kinda plastic and all but each of these are great artists in their own right and their music did have an influence on my life.

 

My mother had a good collection of rock (mostly considered classic rock now) that i grew up listening to on 8 track. Not limited to but including Grand Funk Railroad, Boston, Styxx, James Taylor, SImon and Garfunkle, Gilly Joel , The Eagles, ELO, Meatloaf, Elvis....

...the list could go on, but rock i primarily what i listen to today .

 

Oh and Miles Davis is oh so cool

 

I second that.

 

Started with Zeppelin. Then went to the Police. Then REM. Then Miles and the rest of the older bop cats. Then Primus. Then Galactic. With tons o'shit in between.