h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It was 1960. I was twelve. My mother, who worked in the town library, got me a job mowing the library lawn. Suddenly I had money to spend, and the question was how to spend it. I'd heard some songs from "My Fair Lady" and liked them, so I rushed to a music store and bought the original cast album, the one with Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison. Thus was born my record-collecting mania. As I earned more money, I bought more shows.

After a while, I wanted other kinds of music, too. This was when I began to haunt the discount record racks at Woolworth's. They had records by blues artists like Etta James and Dinah Washington. There was stuff by trumpet master Al Hirt and ensembles like Tijuana Brass and 101 Strings and Mantovani. I picked up records by folk groups like The Chad Mitchell Trio, and "My Son the Folk Singer," by Allan
Sherman, who wrote wacky lyrics to familiar songs. Flanders and Swann sang their own wry songs in "At the Drop of a Hat" and "At the Drop of Another Hat." There were comedy albums like "When You're in Love, the Whole World is Jewish."

Later in the decade, I got quite good at spotting movie soundtrack gems such as "Star" and "Thoroughly Modern Millie," thus continuing my love affair with Julie Andrews.

I don't remember seeing much by way of rock 'n' roll. In 1964, when the Beatles became very poopular in the U.S., I went to Woolworth's and asked if they had any Beatles wigs (I longed to look like the Beatles in those days!). Woolworth's carried almost anything you could think of, but Beatle wigs they did not have.

Times have changed since then. Phonograph records are long gone. Woolworth's is gone, too. I'm about to put a CD of "My Fair Lady" into my CD player. While I listen, I can search eBay and/or Amazon.com for bargain recordings. This is all lots of fun, but none of it can compare with my memories or searching for treasures in the discount record bins at Woolworth's back in the days when I was a teenager, and every day held the promise of new discoveries.

That is a great journal entry, Paul.

When I was young, we didn't have a record player. So I only knew the songs that were played on the radio and couldn't join in conversations about the other music that the other kids knew from the albums. This is odd, as my tastes were very much in the direction of the more obscure tracks that only John Peel played.

John Peel was a legendary radio DJ who refused to play what everyone else was playing, and just put on records that he liked. There are plenty of entries on him on h2g2.

A457094 John Peel, OBE - Broadcaster
A3189512 Tribute to John Peel

Anyway, to get back to your subject. So I never knew the joys of flapping through the rows of records in Woolworths or in the music shop, although I tape-recorded as much as I could. Still, I never had the opportunity to listen to the same music over and over and to get to know the songs really well, which, of course, only works when you are young. I had to make do with waiting for my favourite to come up on the radio.

Nowadays there are CD players all over the house and I have most of the records I have since acquired on my MP3 player. (The drawers and shelves full of cassette tapes are waiting to be converted to MP3)

And now, if you want a *specific* CD you can order it - or even download it from Amazon.

However, when I don't have a specific intention, I do stop at the CD stands when I'm shopping and now - at this late age - am also discovering the joys of flicking through the boxes, not knowing what the next one will be. Funnily enough, one or two bookshops in our nearest town have a huge basket outside with an amazingly disparate selection. The Germans are very very fond of the Beatles and that era and nowadays you can buy all those songs on cheap sampler CD's and sing along.

I have a feeling that this thread will run and run.
My first ever vinyl 45 turned out to be a disappointment as it was a
cover version of Hippy Hippy Shake on Embassy, Woolworth's own label.
Up to then we only had a gramophone that played 78s, so I had to make
do with listening to Radio Luxembourg with its poor signal that faded
in and out for popular music.
My first job, my first wage and the availability of Hire Purchase meant
the acquisition of a record player. From then on I enjoyed spending Saturday
afternoons visiting the big record stores and the very many independent
outlets. Such pleasure in leafing through stacks of vinyl albums, bringing
home a previously unheard of LP and playing it for the fist time.
Sometimes a gem and sometimes a clunker but the artwork tended to
make up for it. If you didn't like the album material, well the
sleeve looked good on the wall.

Thanks for the memories, TC and Mistadrong.

I liked phonograph records because they hasd a sweet smell. The cardboard sleeves that they were stored in smelled sweet to me, too.

There was nothing like turning on the phonograph player and watching the turntable jump into action. Then you carefully moved the playing arm over and made sure the needle landed in exactly the right spot on the record.

For some reason, the only time I heard music on the radio was when I was riding the school bus. The bus's radio played gems such as "Barbara Ann" by the Beach Boys [which sounded to my young ears like "Bob Durant"] or "Pass me by," sung by Peggy Lee.

Television was much more important musically. "American Bandstand" came on around 4:00 in the afternoon, and for a long time I never missed a chance to hear the songs and watch the dancers dance. Many, many songs hit a responsive nerve inside me: "Venus," "My boyfriend's back," "You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone," "Mr. Sandman," "Book of love," "Oh, my love, my darling" [it graced the soundtrack of "Ghost" many years later], "Put your head on my shoulder," "Teenager in love," etc. Is it any wonder that I later became a fan of Sha Na Na, which performed these old songs?

Your discussion of the importance of Woolworth's to a musical education reminded me of Nanci Griffith. She has a song about Woolworth's, and a story to go with it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GK462XnRjQ

Thank you for sharing your wonderful memories Paul of Woolworths and music of the early 60's. I preferred the very upbeat songs particularly raindrops are falling by head sung by Sasha Destelle.

I was only 1 in 1964 but I do remember the music of the 60's from 1968 onwards. I too have happy memories of visiting our Woolworths store in Ashington in 1968 but it was of buying sweets as you could get pick and mix. Sadly there are no more Woolworths stores in the UK as there were shut about 3 or 4 years ago but they have their are online selling toys.

Thanks, Thinker.

"Raindrops keep falling on my head" brings back another set of memories from a few years into the 1970s. A friend gave me an album by that title, sung by B J Thomas. Besides the title song, the album also had "God didn't make little green apples...." or whatever the actual song title was.

Something you don't hear today is the response song.
There'd be a hit like Wolverton Mountain (Claude King) and out would
come a response song, I'm the Girl on Wolverton Mountain (Jo Ann Cambell)
Jim Reese sang He'll Have to Go and sure enough out comes He'll Have to Stay by Jeanne Black. I suppose it was a lazy way to make a record really.

Are people not listening to each other's songs any more? has the musical marketplace gotten too big and complicated? Just curious.