Tag Archives: albums

Vintage Vinyl circa 1978

If you thought the eight-track list was bad, check out the albums I owned in 1978-1979:

The Eagles – Greatest Hits 1971-1975
The Beach Boys – 40 Greatest Hits
Johnny Cash – Ring of Fire
Elvis Presley – Gold Records No. 1, 2, 3 and 4
Kiss – Double Platinum
Kiss – Ace Frehley
ELO – Out of the Blue
The Bay City Rollers – Greatest Hits
Queen – News of the World
Roy Clark – The Everloving Soul of Roy Clark
Linda Hargrove – Music is Your Mistress*
The Blues Project – Reunion in Central Park*
Freddie Hart – His Greatest Hits*
Maynard Ferguson – Chameleon
Columbia Jazz Sampler – 1958
The Music Goes Round and Round – Decca Vol. 1 – 1951-1954
The Music Goes Round and Round – Decca Vol. 2 – 1955-1957
The Music Goes Round and Round – Decca Vol. 3 – 1958-1959

* These I actually won in the fourth grade from a WKTN radio station contest for writing a Halloween essay.

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Eclectic Eight Tracks circa 1978

So here’s the rundown on my eight-track library circa 1978:

The Yardbirds – Five Live Yardbirds
The Yardbirds – Greatest Hits
Carlos Santana and Alice Coltrane – Illuminations
The Beatles – Love Songs
The Beatles – Live at the Hollywood Bowl
The Beatles – Rock and Roll Music
The Beatles – Singles*
Todd Rundgren – Runt: The Ballad of Todd Rundgren
Boston Pops – The Best of Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops
Various Artists – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (soundtrack)

The Beatles I got courtesy of my cousin, who transferred these albums from his vinyl collection to eight-track for a Christmas present one year.

The remainder were acquired in Kmart and various drugstore sale bins in and around Forest and Kenton, Ohio.

I listened to most of these albums A LOT. One bit of evidence of that is: I loaded up this Rundgren album and listened to it today, and knew almost all the words and every one of the vocal nuances. The piano songs and vocal style in particular were a huge influence on my writing at the time (1977-1979).

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Biography in Song, continued

OK, here’s where it’s going to get tricky. After high school, with full time employment, my album purchasing power increased dramatically. A lot of energy was spent building a record collection. I’d go out and buy complete catalogs (yea, a fool and his money are so soon parted). The years 1983 to 1985 consisted of the following milestones:

David Bowie, Every album from “Hunky Dory” through “Scary Monsters”
Bob Dylan, Every album from “Bob Dylan” through “Empire Burlesque”
Otis Rush, Right Place, Wrong Time
Electric Flag, Long Time Coming
Buffalo Springfield, Retrospective
Spyro Gyra, Morning Dance
AC/DC, Highway to Hell
Black Sabbath, Every album from “Black Sabbath” through “Heaven and Hell”
Led Zeppelin, Every album from “Led Zeppelin” through “Presence”
Doc Watson, The Essential Doc Watson
John Hammond, The Best of John Hammond
The Beatles, Complete Half-Speed Masters, “Please Please Me” through “Abbey Road”

Details to follow …

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