Vinyl, Cassettes, CD’s and Me

I was born at the beginning of the 1960’s when a revolution with music had happened. Rock and Roll, Rhythm and Blues, Soul, were replacing middle of the road/easy listening contemporary styles of music. We didn’t have a TV set until the early 1970’s and then only black and white. I bought the families first colour set in 1978 when I started work.

The radio was the window on the world. Radio 2, Radio 4 the BBC’s national channels were always on for my mother. Me, I listened to the chart rundown on Radio 1 during late 60’s early 70’s with Alan “Fluff” Freeman. I had my own mini portable transistor radio as a Christmas present when I was 12, it was then I discovered the joys of listening to Radio Luxembourg with an array of evening programming such as Casey Kasem’s Billboard top 40 Countdown, and The Armed Forces Network where I listened to American Football Games usually when I should have been asleep, and it was often with bad radio signal reception. In 1974 Birmingham had its own independent commercial radio channel, BRMB. It had local DJ’s such as Les Ross and the sports program done by Tony Butler.

Some of my first albums and singles were bought for me as birthday or Christmas presents. One of my early albums was “Tubular Bells” by Mike Oldfield (Virgin V2001), my pressing being on what is known as the beige design Virgin label published in 1975.

My first purchases of singles were at Birmingham’s Bull Ring Indoor Market at Bailey’s Records. My Aunt worked in the market, so while my mother chatted to her sister, I got to browse the latest releases.

I have a large collection of music, which today includes downloads, and although I’m not a professional musician or critic, I’d like to share my love of music, artists and genres.

Images of labels and picture sleeves figured in blog entries under My Singles, or My Albums categories are of my own purchased music and have been taken by myself with an ordinary digital camera or phone. I try to credit original photography where known.