A question

[bubinga5]

I will start by saying i was brought up listening to Anita Baker The Gap Band George Benson Earth Wind And Fire   etc.that was my childhood for years My mum always had George Benson The Ojays playing when i was  a nipper. Usually funky soul stuff playing..    I just wondered if personally your early years had any bearing on the way you play now.? 

 

[Doctor J]

My earliest memory is listening to my Mum's Mother of Invention LPs, specifically Absolutely Free and We're Only In It For The Money. As a result, when it comes to music, anything goes, particularly the more varied and eclectic stuff.
 

I will also call any vegetable, any vegetable at all.

[gafbass02]

Country and western and the Royal Marine band in my house. No bearing at all. In fact, my music making was strongly discouraged for a long time. 

[jonno1981]

Led zep, Bowie, The smiths, King crimson, kraftwerk, Motown was all on heavy rotation was I was growing up. 

I love all of these and it’s certainly had an impact on my playing and musical taste. 

I had a weird nostalgic moment listening the smiths recently when I swear I felt like I’d stood on some Lego. No Lego in sight, just a weird flashback to some point in my youth when my dad was spinning vinyl in the front room. 

[Dad3353]

No music in our house to speak of (and no budget for it, either...) until I started work and bought 'Surrealistic Pillow' and 'Piper At The Gates Of Dawn'. It all went downhill from there. 

[Ed_S]

My mum's LPs and tapes were stuff like Rainbow, Whitesnake, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Saxon, Meat Loaf, Status Quo, Queen, Bruce Springsteen, Bon Jovi, ELO, Dire Straits. I still listen to and play all of those, so despite the fact that I was never paying particular attention to the bass in those formative years, and I've never been fussed about learning or replicating the exact lines of any of the bassists on those records since I started playing, I'm sure they must have influenced the way I play.

[PaulThePlug]

At the time and my youthful music No...

Fats Domino, Everly Bros, Buddy Holly, Duane Eddy...

Nowadays when i hear em, it takes me straight back and i can appreciate whats in them. 

[ezbass]

My dad used to play The Ted Heath Orchestra, The Peddlers (organ trio), Tom Jones, Les Paul & Mary Ford, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Wes Montgomery, James Last and others, but these are the ones that immediately spring to mind. I could listen to them now and still appreciate the. However, I went my own way with ‘70s pop, until I was exposed to Deep Purple and everything changed and I became a blues rock fan. Back then, certainly not now, I was a massive Clapton fan, who then became one of my dad’s favourite artists. It turns out that we influenced each other.

 

Did what my parents played influence what I play/listen to now? I guess at some level, yes. However, on face value and even looking a bit beyond that, I’d have to say no.

[Cato]

My dad was into Lonnie Donegan and a very narrow field of 4 or 5 country artists.

 

Never liked the country stuff, but I have wondered if the skiffle had a subliminal effect on my guitar playing.

 

My default strumming pattern definitely has an element of the Skiffle almost percussive rhythm guitar thing going on.

[Tdw]

In my house it was all beatles and Simon and garfunkel.  I don't think my playing has been consciously influenced by McCartney but I expect it has to be in some way.

[meterman]

Good question 👍

 

My mum listened to Bollywood soundtrack albums, eastern and western classical music and opera and also liked Greek folk music.

 

My dad liked fairly skronky avant garde jazz, Albert Ayler and things like that. Occasionally he’d play tapes of Charles Mingus or Thelonius Monk or Miles Davis.

 

There was no pop music in our house unless it was on my pocket radio and I listened before and sometimes after school. When I first started buying records in the late 1970s with my paper round money I bought mostly disco or punk rock. Chic and The Ramones. Salsoul and The Saints. Sylvester and the Ruts. 

 

None of the music I heard at home when I was a kid had any influence on my playing at all. I like some of the jazz that my dad used to be into but you’d never know from my playing.

 

 

[Lozz196]

Mainly the radio in my house as a kid so whatever was in the Top 20 at the time. Given that - at the time they were happening- I liked 70s glam rock then punk then new wave I suppose it has influenced me.

[neepheid]

I don't think it's an accident that Cream LPs were in amongst the parental vinyl and I consider Jack Bruce to be one of my influences/reasons I started playing bass in the first place...

[upside downer]

Dad only had four albums. Two Don Williams, a Dolly Parton and a Greatest Hits of 1973 affair. Mum occasionally tuned in to Radio 2.

 

As to influences, I'd go with my elder cousin who, when we were round Gran's house, would slip his collection of punk singles and albums on the turntable. "Turn that rubbish off!" 😀

[Bassassin]

Probably did. My mum would have the radio on a lot so I was exposed to whatever was chart material at the time (mid 60s/70s) & she also was a bit of a classical music fan. I hated the light opera she sometimes listened to but the more bombastic orchestral stuff made a connection. I'm quite fond of a bit of bombast as well as a memorable hook, and I doubt that's a complete coincidence.

[martin8708]

My Dad - numerous James Last Albums 

 

My Mum - early Stones , Dave Brubeck , Chris Barber ,Acker Bilk and Neil Diamond .

Hot August Night is still one of my favourite jam along records .

I owe a big debt of gratitude to my mum .

[Mykesbass]

Frank Sinatra, bit of C&W, bit of trad Jazz, Radio 2 on all day, including evenings as we had no TV.

 

Guess it helped my eclectic taste, but probably not my bass playing.

[Linus27]

Absolutely and my family home was full of music 24/7. My dad's hifi was his pride and joy and boy were we not allowed to touch it. We were however allowed to listen to it with his supervision. He would listen to Big Band Swing Jazz, Frank Sinatra, Ted Heath Orchestra and a lot of organ music like the old organs you'd find in cinema's. My mum was more into singers like The Carpenters, Barry Manilow, Val Doonican, Nana Mouskouri as well as some classical music. I remember listening to a lot of The Carpenters and loving the Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft song.

 

My two older sisters however were the real gems (although I thank my dad massively for my love of Jazz and my mum for The Carpenters) and were listening to everything from the late 70's and the 80's. My oldest sister was massively into The Police, Duran Duran, Thompson Twins, Paul Young, Spandau Ballet and Culture Club. My other sister was massively into Level 42, Depeche Mode, Michael Jackson, Tears For Fears, Adam and the Ants, Inxs and ABBA but between them they had everything and would listen to the top 40 religiously every Sunday. They were 7 and 5 years older than me so had started Saturday jobs and were buying records every week as well as getting them for birthdays and Christmas.

 

So I was literally a sponge, absorbing everything that was being played to eventually getting to a point of sneaking into my sisters bedrooms when they were out and playing their records and getting caught and told off. I particularly remember loving Talk Talk, The Thompson Twins, Duran Duran, Michael Jackson but it was early Madonna that I fell in love with. Then Live Aid happened and I saw Adam Clayton strutting around stage looking super cool and I knew that's what I wanted to do and the rest as they say is history.

Edited November 4, 2023 by Linus27

[Downunderwonder]

My Dad's record player was junk and he had few records. When I was a teen he upgraded it. There was a scratchy Beatles record that got played a bit so I caught onto them when they had long broken up. Still enjoy them. I can't remember any of the.others so I guess they never made any impression on me at all.

 

The main player on the new stereo was the concert programme. I listened to a bit of that as I was a student of the violin. I still tune in when it is rubbish on the rock and classic stations but it's not my go to.

[Leonard Smalls]

From my mum's side we got anything up to Rachmaninov, then she started doing her LRAM and we got right up to date with a touch of Shostakovich.

And from my dad's side we got really modern, with Sidney Bechet, Chris Barber and Acker Bilk.

My dad's reaction to popular music on TOTP was usually "Do they want to go to the toilet?", and my mum would say "what a disgusting noise!".

As a result I like to make as much of a racket as I can!

[zbd1960]

My mum was an Elvis fan, and classic musicals. I never really knew what my dad liked (I discovered later it was jazz, but we never had that discussion when he was alive). If the radio was on, it would be the Light Programme, until that was split into Radios 1 & 2, and it was Radio 2. Radio 2 used to have the odd classical music programme, which is how my interest started and by age 10 I started listening to Radio 3 at times.  

[Baloney Balderdash]

My parents did play a fair share of music from Danish folk artists, and been to a couple concerts together with my parents with a couple of them as a kid too, and yes, folk does have a very big place in my heart, and on guitar it is actually also what I mainly write/compose.

 

However by far the majority of the music I compose/produce/create is in the much more experimental end of the spectrum, with quite a few electronic elements, and on bass specifically a fair share progressive/math and doom/stoner rock stuff as well, so in that aspect not so much.

 

Though I have composed some more folky stuff on bass too.

 

I guess my answer would be "to some degree".

 

Edited November 5, 2023 by Baloney Balderdash

[spongebob]

Not at all, really. 

 

Only a few albums in the house....Mum's old Elvis....GI Blues, Something For Everybody and Blue Hawaii. Not his best!

 

Carpenters 'brown' compilation....'69-73? Plus my brothers Wombling Songs album.

 

The latter got me into music, Mike Batt is a legend in my book for the doors he opened with those songs. 

 

So as a bassist,  no influence,  but getting into a lifelong musical obsession....yes! 

[Geek99]

No record player, radio always tuned to radio 4.

 

 

[goingdownslow]

I can still remember the HMV radiogram with my dad's collection of  Humphrey Lyttleton 78s, and also some favourites of mine, 'Take Me For A Buggy Ride' by George Melly and Mick Mulligans Magnolia Jazz Band,  and 'The Old Music Master' by Hoagy Carmichael.
Before my dad passed away (2004) I had bought him a set of Humphrey Lyttleton cds which I now have and often listen to and bring back those happy memories of our tiny terraced house in the '50s.

My Dad played the accordion and was gigging from the age of 14 to his 80s.
This was sometime after the war with Danny Black's Rhythm Boys.