Do You Remember Your First Music Purchase?


Lisa (my better half) and I, were doing some vinyl listening this weekend. She posed an interesting question. What is the first record in your collection that you had ever purchased?

Since my music aquisitions started in about 1965, needless to say, my first music purchase was a record. For some of the younger folks on this site, their first music purchase may have been a CD.

For me it was Gary Lewis and the Playboys, "Everybody Loves A Clown". It took me about 2 hours to figure out since I have, I would guess, about 2500 albums. I still have the album and it still plays pretty well considering it's probably been tracked by about 20 different stylii. I had A Webcor Stereo that my parents had purchased me for my 6th birthday. It had a 7" BSR turntable and an AM/FM "radio" built in, with 2 "detachable" speakers.

What is the first piece of recorded music you ever purchased and do you still own it?
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The first album I bought with my own money was Santana III in 1971. Still have the original wax, which is surprisingly playable but would only rate a solid VG by current used record industry standards. This was the record from which I learned to play hand drums, and a better tutorial doesn't exist to this day. The band had the opportunity to really stretch out and develop that thick, juicy ensemble sound that the band had back then. I had seen them a year and a half earlier and this record had that "sound", which the first record and Abraxas, somehow, missed.

I wish I could say something cool like the Beatles or Stones (I did buy a 45 of 'Angie' quite early, as I recall), but to the best of memory, my first music purchase was an album by the Partridge Family, probably because I had seen the television show and had a crush on Susan Dey. Plus, I saw how all the girls went crazy over David Cassidy. Later, I bought 'Frampton Comes Alive' because I saw how all the girls went crazy over Peter Frampton.

The first time I remember being utterly captivated by the music itself was Blue Oyster Cult's 'Don't Fear the Reaper', which I played over and over and over and still love to this day.