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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For me it was America's Horse With No Name.Still plays fine after all those years.
My very first was the 45 of "Remember you're a womble" by The Wombles (who else !?). Fellow brits out there might appreciate that.
In terms of LPs it was "A Night at the Opera" by Queen. Still a great album, but has suffered from being played on "extremely low-fi" equipment.
mine was Steve Miller Band 'the Joker'

My brother bought 'Fire' by crazy Arthur Brown back in the 60's, I think it was his first
My first music purchase was in 1967, needless to say my first purchase was a record, the Beatles "Magical Mystery Tour". No, I don't still have it. It was ruined during an unauthorized loan.
My first brand-new-from-a-record-store purchase was either a Beatles or a Led Zeppelin album that I bought when I was around 14 years old (circa 1975). I don't have any of those records anymore as my record collection (150+) was stolen some years later.
Wow...I had to really think about that one. Actually, my first record was a 45. It was Zager & Evens "In the Year 2525", followed by Frigid Pinks "House of the Rising Sun". Pity...I had quite a large collection, 'till I got to college and used them all for frisbee's.
A 45 rpm I'd heard on the radio
Question Mark and the Mysterians - "96 Tears"

but on that same purchase I got the Beatles "Rarities" album....now have 80 Beatles records, so I guess they stuck a bit more than the former...
Herb Alpert "Whipped Cream". That naked girl with all that Cool Whip on her...well I was about 12. And yes I still have it.
I think my first record purchase made with my own money was a 45 single of Elvis Presley's "Jailhouse Rock". I think "Don't Be Cruel" was on the "B" side - but I may be wrong about that. I have no idea where that Sun single is any longer - but I certainly played it a lot! Must have played it several hundred times - sometimes at loud volume with my bedroom windows open wide. Great fun - especially when you're only 11 or 12 years old!
Puchased two LP's that day ... Glen Campbell's "Wichita Lineman" and the Beatles "Hard Day's Night" ... which were both "E" level records at EJ Korvettes, which translated to $3.44 each on sale.
My first music purchase was the 45 of "Summer in the City" by Lovin Spoonful. I have the track on LP but my original 45 record is long gone.
My first adult music album was chicago VIII. It had harry truman, ain't it blue, and I think old days. It also came with an iron-on which was a replica of the album cover.
Grand Funk Railroad "Mark, Don and Mel." Still have it after 30 some years. It is still the one album my brother and I talk about the most of. I remember it was purchased with paper route money back then. My kids get a bang out of it when I play it at a loud volume. Rock and Roll was quite different back then. It was much, much better back then than it is today.
Well up to this point I love most everybody's first purchase. Most all of those were favs. of mine.--While my older siblings bought records that we all listened to; "my" first record purchase was the 78 of Les Paul/Mary Ford; "The World Is Waiting For the Sunrise"---This was played on one of those wind-up jobs. I think there must have been 5/8 lbs. weight on the needle. After enough spins I think you could hear the B side without flipping the record.( Backwards,of course.)
I purchased 3 LP's in the fall of 1969 (I was 12).
Jimi Hendrix- Are You Experienced?
Jefferson Airplane- Surrealistic Pillow
Country Joe and the Fish- Greatest Hits
Still have them all but, the Hendrix and Airplane albums have been "replaced" by the DCC reissues. Still waiting for an 180g. Country Joe reissue......
Meet the Beatles and I'm A Fool Lp by Dino, Desi and Billy which has a great version of Like A Rolling Stone on it.
My very first purchase would have been the "Best of Stephenwolf" on tape circa 1988(?) I would have been ten years old. I am sure I still have it somewhere, but I don't have a tape player anymore.
Between the Buttons by the RollingStones. Still have it ,dont remember if its stereo or mono. I do know that I have all the early stones in mono and I duped some in stereo(high tides,aftermath,decembers children)
SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES By THE PLATTERS..A 45RPM RECORD I BOUGHT AS A NINE YEAR OLD IN 1959...
Beatles; Rubber Soul

The next one I remember is Led Zeppelin II. I am sure there was probably some inbetween these, but this is the one I remember. I remember purchasing Paul Revere and the Raiders with Cherokee People, but don't remember if it was before or after Led Zeppelin II.

I don't have any of these titles now and I don't know what ever happened to them.
I bought the Kinks "Kink-Size" waay back in early '65. Had to buy the mono version because I couldn't afford the extra dollar for a stereo copy. My pitiful, portable,picnic player would not have done justice to it anyway. Ah, the life of a unemployed 12 year old.
A 45 of the Carpenter's "Top of the World" when I was about 11. First album was "Abbey Road". I had about 100-120 albums when I went off to college. My parents sold them all at a garage sale for 50 cents a piece a couple of years later. AAAAAARRGGHHH!!!! Make the pain stop!!
Try as I might, can't seem to recall when I first used money to get a record. Do hand-me-downs count? If so My older sister gave me "The Sound of Jazz" that she got from the Columbia record club and one of my other sisters gave me "Highway 61 Revisited", both for the same reason: they declared these albums as "unlistenable". Neither knew a thing about music. Their loss was my gain. Do 45s count? I remember a Rolling Stones single where the B side was either "Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man" or was it the instrumental "2120 South Michigan Avenue"? So many records, so little time. Screw the audiophile thing, give me the music...
I vaguely remember it being a 45 of Roy Orbison's "Pretty Woman". Even way back then, that falsetto voice was really something. I think that I played that thing so many times that I wore it out! I bought a "Best Of" a month or two ago and surprisingly I still remembered most every word of that song. It was like I reverted back to my early teen years...I think I'll go on home it's late, they'll be tomorrow night, but wait..what do I see..is she walking back to me!!!
The Dave Clark Five,"Glad All Over" and I still have it. These guys, I thought, were cooler and a bit more progressive than the Beatles at that time. Sadly, they didn't evolve too much further but put out some good stuff in that period..Cheers, Lee
Can't rembmer the 45's, but I do remember the first lp was machine head by Deep Purple. Still sounds great!
A mono version of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band purchased from EJ Korvettes. Too many scratches to be played. Purchased a stereo version years later.
Hello Goodbye by the Beatles. I think I was 5 or 6 and had saved up my allowance to buy the 45. My sister who was older was able to purchase Beatles and Monkees records by the score, but I had none. My parents gave me one of the old record players in-a-box and I watched as the yellow and orange label spun round and round while I listened to "Hello Goodbye" and "I am the Walrus". Must have played it 500 times or more, but alas, condition problems sent it to an early grave. But hey ...I still remember it...and that's what counts.
A 45 - Hound Dog - Elvis Presley. I was 8 years old.
My first LP was a Platter's album with "Great Pretender."
Joel
I was 9 years old when I bought, "The Monkees", for $2.99 at Woolworth's Drug Store. I bought the Mono LP since I could not afford the Stereo LP!
I'm pretty sure it was a 45 of "D.O.A." by Bloodrock when I was in grade school. Now that's a weird song.
Geez The Platters "Great Pretender" was an album I found in the refuse closet near the incinerator chute in my apartment building, years and years ago, along with some Duke Ellington albums. Probably played The Platters a hundred times. Knew just about all the words to the songs. I am dating myself here.
My first LP purchase was the Byrds "Mr. Tambourine Man". It was a toss-up and tough choice between this one and The Kinks first album ...I think it was just called "The Kinks".
This was 1965 and I was 12, almost 13 yrs old. My next was "Rubber Soul" by the Beatles. Never did get that Kinks album!
Stevie Wonder 45 For once in my Life, also a 45 Green Tambourine. I forget the artist Also about that time I remember getting a cardboard 45 of the song My Girl which I think was the 4 tops. First album I think was Bealtles 65.
First music purchase: Dark Side of the Moon on 8-track tape, first vinyl purchase Foreigner Double Vision (how embarassing)
"Out of our Heads", Rolling Stones. When I took it to my
cousin, I had to return it for the mono Lp. Her system
was a tube Harmon Kardon mono receiver with Garrard tt and
EV speaker. Mono, Stereo, I didn't know the difference.
In '67 I inherited that system and I was in heaven. Then it became my first guitar amp. Those tubes gave me a nice over-driven sound not unlike Cream. I shoulda held on to it.
It was either the Supreme's "Where Did Our Love Go" or the first Manfred Mann album, the one with "Doo Wah Diddy". The Supreme's record is still one of my favorite albums and get consistent play. Don't know what happened to the Manfred Mann disc, but it proved very influential in that it introduced me to a number of classic blues tunes. I'd never heard "Smokestack Lightning" before, nor did I even know who Muddy Waters was at the time.

Darrylhifi, I believe it was the Lemonpipers who did "Green Tambourine".
My first LP was Queen "A Night At The Opera." I saved my money and bought it at K-Mart. I made the mistake of leaving it laying around in my room and my mother read the lyrics. She made me get rid of it.

Several years later I bought a new copy of it in Germany while we were visiting my grandparents (her parents). By then I had enough LPs that she did not notice it.