Songs From Your Youth

No one favorite, but back in the sixties the "rock" stations played the top 40 list, which was not always rock songs. There was a wide variety of music on the charts, and if any song got into the top 40 it got air time. I learned to appreciate many style of music that way. Minneapolis had two great top 40 stations, you may remember them. KDWB and WGGY.
 
TheHobbyist said:
Lab,

If I recall correctly, you also have an affinity for Depression era radios. :)

I have a number of old Zenith's from the 1930's still warmin' up to WSM.

Probably my rarest is an old fairbanks morse radio rotary dial...thing is just perfect with the old oil lamps and good music blastin'.
Click to expand...

My late brother, a disabled Navy vet and retired teacher of electronics, had as his principal hobby in later years the restoration of vintage radios. He would search forever online for the correct vacuum tubes, capacitors, etc., to make them exactly like new. One wall of his living room was a mini-museum of these beauties. Sitting on the floor on another wall was the massive radio set from a World War II PBY Catalina.

I haven't been to his house since he died in September. I hope his son has kept the collection intact.

Sorry, end of drift.
 
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Shooting Padre said:
No one favorite, but back in the sixties the "rock" stations played the top 40 list, which was not always rock songs. There was a wide variety of music on the charts, and if any song got into the top 40 it got air time. I learned to appreciate many style of music that way. Minneapolis had two great top 40 stations, you may remember them. KDWB and WGGY.
Click to expand...

I do indeed. WDGY is still on the air but no longer doing rock. I think KDWB is still doing Top 40. In the late 50's, I used to listen to WDGY late at night on a crystal radio with an earbud. That was y introduction to rock 'n roll, pop, R&B, Motown and anything else that could make it onto the charts. A little later on, WDGY disc jockey Bill Diehl used to do shows with local bands at venues like Schlief's Little City ("just seven minutes south of the Mendota Bridge on Highway 55") and Big Reggie's Danceland in Excelsior (I saw Bill Haley and the Comets, Jimmy Reed, and the Rolling Stones there). Local bands included Gregory Dee and the Avantis, The Stompin' Underbeats, and not least, the Trashmen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZThquH5t0ow
 
Songs by Tom T. Hall and Ian Tyson were on the radio when I was
young. Also a lot of rock and roll listed above.
"On The Road Again," was a favorite.

WLS "from Chicago!" used to be a rock and roll, clear channel station.
Now, I think, it is "...all talk, all the time."

I used to hear "They're Coming To Take Me Away," late at night
back then. There was a jazz station from NY with a show that started with a solo on empty bottles. I heard that a lot during the weeks before dad bought a new battery for the old Rambler station wagon. We were getting up a couple times a night to start the old beast and run it for 15 minutes so dad could get it to start for work in the morning.

I think he always had the cash for a battery but he could be a world-class procrastinator at times.
 
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When I was a wee one......

I think 'Witch Doctor' was my first favorite song. My Dad always played 'Twilight Time" and "Dark Moon" on the 'record player in the hall. "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" was another big one. Hank Williams was a big on along with Johnny Cash's 'Hey Porter' and the flip side, "Cry, Cry, Cry'. He also had some condensed classics that I learned to appreciate. 'You'll Never Walk Alone" was a perennial favorite. "Tchaikovsky's 1st concerto was a big one and when Van Cliburn won the Tchaikovsky Competition with it, it REALLY became popular. Tennessee Ernie Ford had a really good album of Gospel. We heard a lot of 'Showboat' and 'Carousel'. We NEVER heard anything approaching Blues, Jazz or Rock and Roll. We found out later that my Mom was a closet Elvis fan.

From there it moved to what my sister played. "Teen Angel', Get a Job, and all the late 50's, early 60s stuff. I began listening to AM radio at that time and then the "Beatles' came and everything changed completely and permanently. My Dad was vitreolic about ANYTHING rock and roll but much much later we found that he liked some of the Beatles songs along wiith Simon and Garfunkle's 'Sounds of Silence'. He used to play it full blast closed up in his garage.

Good Lord, how could I have left out, "Hang Down Your Head Tom Dooley" and "I'm in the Jailhouse Now"?
 
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I know I sure didn't like the classical music they tried to foist off on me when my Mom
made me take them durned piano lessons.

Anybody remember KOMA radio? That was the only station on that I could hear with the little transistor radio I propped up on the dash of my patrol car on the midnight shift in the 60s. I could only hear it when going north and south. I suspect my patrol pattern may have been influenced by that.
There was a super station in Mexico that we could hear at night clear up in Wyoming. KLEXEO
or something like that.
 
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labworm said:
Still playing that piano?
Click to expand...

Nope, and I cain't dance a lick in spite of several years of ball room dance lessons.
My Ma really tried to make me into a little gentleman, but it never took.:cool:
 
My Dad had his record player going almost every night as he read. We didn't have a tv back then. The first thing I thought of when I saw this thread was Johnny Cash. I knew almost all his songs at an early age. Another that hasn't been mentioned is Eddy Arnold. "Make the World Go Away"
 
Well, a big "LIKE" and thanks to all who contributed to the memories.
I grew up in a transition era---Big bands and WWII and the like---the beginnings of Rock and Roll--the Folk music era (short but Good-I guess I was a Beatnik.)
Now, it is mostly Classic C&W---late 40's early 50's.
Blessings
 
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