Name a few albums which helped determine your musical tastes

What I really wondered was how did this audiophile group all get influenced by rock music, and not jazz.  I do understand that tastes evolve, but my band mates and I were always into jazz and did not embrace rock for a long time.  Maybe, the big amps needed for electric instruments had an influencece on who became an audiophile.

Probably because they came from a world where pop and rock were already dominant. Really dominant. I tried to find stats from earlier eras, but that would take a while. How many kids in high school did I know that were into jazz? Maybe 1% or less. But lots listened to music, bought stereos, etc. so some found there way to better products without necessarily liking jazz or classical. Here’s 2018: https://www.statista.com/statistics/310746/share-music-album-sales-us-genre/

The Beatles blue and red compilation records
Yes Fragile
Deep Purple Made In Japan
Frank Zappa Overnight sensation
Montrose 
Foghat Energized 
ELP Welcome back my friends. 
Earth Wind and Fire Gratitude
my early musical education was somewhat odd. I went from a M radio to almost 3 years in a little fundamentalist Christian day school in Miami we’re on more than one occasion, they had record stomps. For those who are not familiar with these, that’s when everyone brings in their evil black devil music rock records and smash them along with their Ouija boards. Perhaps a kinder gentler version of book burning. So I spend the last couple of months of my eighth grade year in a somewhat scary public junior high school in Connecticut. Like I said I was a television and I am radio guy so I had heard the Beatles from the cartoons… Yeah I know. And I had heard Some reasonably normal music on the AM radio in Miami that didn’t involve anyone named Osmond or Jackson. That’s where I heard the kinks Lola for the first time. But when I got to that school in Connecticut amidst all the current stuff like David Essex and such, a couple of the guys there were listening to those Beatles records, Yes and Deep Purple. The following fall I started ninth grade a military boarding school in Pennsylvania. That first year Yes when I was introduced to Zappa Montrose Foghat Earth wind and fire and some others. Over the summer I got my parents to buy me one of those cheap all in one stereos with the Garrard turntable the radio and an eight track player in one hideous chassis And equally ugly speakers. Along with that my mother bought me four records. They were the Herbie Mann album where he went shirtless and Pop, Crosby stills Nash and Young déjà vu, Neil Young harvest, and Elton John Honky Château. Of the four the only one I really listen to any of that time was Elton. I listen to a couple of songs on harvest and a couple on déjà vu but didn’t come back to those until years later. Really started listening to Elton a year or two later with goodbye yellow brick road. The ELP was what my friend next-door was listening to him at the beginning of my sophomore year when I switched dormitories. If I went from there you’ll see a bunch of stuff fromThose guys, yes, Kansas, Rick Wakeman, and some obscure stuff like triumvirat that he had. That’s also when I heard rush for the first time. The other music I was listening to was pretty blues Rocky. Johnny Winter Road Buchanan and eventually pretty much any guitar God. I also started listening to the deep purple again around this time. And that weird add mixture of blues bass guitar dirt rock and pro rock carried me for many years. Obviously everyone back then was listening to queen and other folks like that. I didn’t rediscover Led Zeppelin until I was a junior and I had a marked tendency to discover the new bands I liked based on a live album they put out. So exhibit was the soundtrack to the song remains the same, rush all the worlds a stage Ted Nugent… Yeah I know… Double live gonzo. Frampton, Foghat live. Etc. I believe the two obvious bands that I should’ve been tuned into didn’t come around really until senior year in high school and early college, those being Allman Brothers and Genesis. Hell, I didn’t get into Peter Gabriel era Genesis until after I heard Peter Gabriel solo stuff in the early to mid-80s. And on top Over that I was digging on stuff like P funk and such. That first summer with the stereo one of the next records it was bought for me was just lie and the family stone dance in the music and then we countered that summer of 76 with all three of the current Bad company records. As matter fact that’s how I eventually discovered Mott the Hoople the next year. Interestingly, I didn’t really branch out that much until I started looking into this whole audio file thing in the late 80s when I was in Gainesville. That’s when I started reading stereophile and TAS And that’s when I discovered folks like John Hiatt, Richard Thompson and started listening to some of my old favorites a bit more critically. It is quite interesting listening to an original vinyl copy or a Remaster from the original mix of some thing like trace hombres. It should come as no surprise that it was all downhill from there. LOL

The Clash Sandinista,Steel Pulse True Democracy, Dire Straits Live at bbc, Bad Brains I against I

Beatles--Meet the, et al
Byrds--Mister Tamborine Man
Neil Young--Sleeps with Angels
Kinks--Muswell Hillbillies
Warren Zevon--Excitable Boy
Yes--Close to the Edge
Jethro Tull--Stand Up
Grateful Dead--American Beauty
Ventures--Ventures
Leo Kottke--Peculiaroso
Roches--Roches
Aimee Mann--Mental Health
Kate Wolf--Give Yourself to Love
Steeleye Span--Parcel of Rogues
Sharon Shannon--Diamond Mountain Sessions