Two of the very first songs i remember hearing and liking were “Come and Get It” by Badfinger and “Gotta See Jane” by R. Dean Taylor.

My very  first album, was a K-Tel album called “Out of Sight”. I saw it advertised on TV and got it for my birthday one year. My sister got a portable turntable (we called them “record players” back then) for christmas. I’m pretty sure i used that turntable more than she did. I played that album on her record player hundreds of times. The K-Tel album that came after that was called “Sounds Spectacular” and i played that hundreds of times also. Interesting to note that the Canadian versions of those albums had a much better track listing than the U.S. versions. Probably because of the Canadian content that legally had to be used.

I will do a K-Tel blog at some point because there are 3 of them that heavily influenced my musical choices.

These albums were my introduction to the world of pop/rock music. I had a friend who lived a few doors down who was heavily into Black Sabbath, another friend from school opened my eyes to ZZ Top, Rod Stewart, and KISS.

Friends of my sister’s made sure I heard my share of Donny Osmond, Bay City Rollers, and Leif Garrett (all the guys i knew said “leaf” but we’d get shouted down with “IT’S LAYFE” . The girls were vehement about it) . I already had a Partridge Family album, so i was covered there.

In shop class, I was hit with bad air/voice guitar versions of Nazareth songs (This Flight  Tonight, and Deep Purple (uh, Smoke on the Water).

the local community TV channel did a dj radio thing on friday nights from 8pm to midnight, and I heard Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”, Moody Blues “Nights in White Satin”, Robin Trower’s “Bridge of Sighs”. In the space of four short years i got a musical education.

All of that was when i lived in Shilo, Manitoba (like i said in an earlier blog, my formative years 🙂 )

When you are an army brat and you move, you get to start your new life with no friends in a place you don’t know and maybe don’t even like. For me i was able to compensate with lots of reading and listening to the radio. and i was lucky to be able to hit that record store i mentioned (Used Grooves) , so my album collection started to grow.

A soon to be friend moved in across  the street and he had an extensive record collection (looked like all pristine brand new albums too), but more  than that he had a book. It was a book called “The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock”. My copy pictured below.

This book is pure rock music gold. I know this because this particular edition can be bought second hand for between $75 US and $3000 US. That second number was not a typo.

I read it from cover to cover. I read about groups i already liked. I read about groups i didn’t know I was about to like. I read about groups whose albums i wouldn’t buy till decades later.

My biggest revelation about reading all this musical information what that it stuck. I simply remembered most of what i read; dates that albums were released, complete discographies of classic rock groups, and band lineups for same.

if you are into classic rock and have any kind of record collection you want this book. you need this book. get a copy, you will thank me later.

Having said that you need a specific version of this book. If you go to Amazon you’ll find the “fifth edition”, the “6th edition”  or the “7th edition”. But if the “fifth edition is any indication of the way the book content was going, you can save your money. I have a copy of the fifth, but the  edition i’m raving about is  either the second or the third. it says “New Edition” so  i think it’s the second, the copyright date is 1976. The photo of the book above is the one you want.

[later: I think i found both the 2nd and 3rd, so i’ll update this blog when they come in.]

As good as the book is, it does omit  Canadian groups; Lighthouse, Stampeders, April Wine, Rush, Gordon Lightfoot and Heart (who were thought to be Canadian at one point), but does include Neil Young. There is a book called “Heart of Gold” which is a great history of Canadian music, worth having  if you like Canadian groups. Subsequent editions of the  encyclopedia  included the Canadian content, but sucked in other ways.

Fast forward a few years and we had to move again to Edmonton. Because army brat. one night when hanging out with a few of my sister’s friends (i had none of my own), one particular guy (that’s you Brian F.) (and his friend, whose name i think was Mike) started talking about music.

When i start talking about classic rock, i’m pretty much non-stop. friends just roll their eyes now, but at the table we were sitting around that night i had a captive audience. My sister told me a few days later that Mike couldn’t believe how much i knew about music (he was referring to classic rock of course).

At one point Brian asks me what i think about the group Yes.  I could tell by the way he asked that it was his favourite group. I told him that the only song i really knew was their song Roundabout (it’s off the Fragile album if you wanted some context) . I said i liked the song but for the most part i was  unfamiliar with progressive music.

Of course i told them my favourite group was T.REX but as i’ve come to get used to  that elicits blank stares from most people, that night wasn’t any different.

My answer seemed to satisfy him, but later we would talk more and more about music he introduced me to progressive music through his favourite group. he tried to get me to Genesis (in their progrock days) but that didn’t stick (sorry Brian, still no)

Anyway, one day his mom drove us to Edmonton public library.

I don’t know what it’s like now but at one point it had the most traffic of any library in North America. It was on one end of the LRT (University of Alberta was the other end at the time). It had 3 or 4 floors of to it.

One floor was dedicated entirely to music. If you’ve ever been to Sam the Record Man in Toronto (the one with the two huge neon signs that looked like spinning vinyl, you know the size i’m talking about. This was X 4. It. Was. Huge.

You were allowed to take out 10 albums at a time. Brian walked me through the process of getting my library card and the library in general. Kid in a candy store. 🙂

On the way there, Brian was riding shotgun, i was in the back seat and  Brian turned around to me and said “she’s musically informed by the way”  referring to his mom this was a term he coined with the obvious meaning.

I was impressed. none of my other friend’s (in the last place i lived)  mom’s could make that claim.

Since then i’ve only run into 3 people (one of my bosses from work, one person i used to work with years ago, and  my wife) who could make that claim (and not to toot my own horn) but they still have a ways to go 🙂