Who do you credit for your love of mucic?

My mother had an artistic nature and took to my music pretty quickly. She willingly went to Elton John concerts and even a Springsteen concert as early as the 1970s. She thoroughly enjoyed them. My mom also took on other favorites like the Beatles, Cat Stevens, Eric Clapton and Van Morrison pretty early on. For my other friends and their parents--my friends and I were just listening to "noise".
I remember the time in 1971 when I was playing Teaser and the Firecat relentlessly in my room. One day my brothers , sister and father were out of the house. My mom asked me to put Teaser and the Firecat on the Fisher in the living room with the remote speaker in the kitchen while she and I prepared (mostly she) and ate (mostly I) dinner. She knew most of the songs from my room. I thought--wow-- she listens and she actually gets this. Think her distinctive ability to cross the musical divide became less apparent in the 1980s when the generation gap narrowed and others of her generation started to understand. Yep, I got it from her. Yep, I miss her.

I really didn't have much of a choice. I was born into a musical family and handed a violin (fiddle) at the age of five. Every weekend we were off playing somewhere and then would tour some through the summer. Country/Gospel/ Bluegrass was pretty much 24/7. Use to rig up our record player and play it through the Fender tube amps that we brought with us when doing concerts. Bought my first stereo just out of high school and then discovered the Absolute Sound magazine which pretty much sealed the deal for high end audio for life.

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I would have to give my mother the most credit. With Sinatra-Bennett-Mathis-Warwick and various classical and show tunes being played helped create a diverse interest in music. Even with my ear glued to "THE BIG 8" I understood there were other forms of music that were not weird or strange just because they were not played on Top 40 radio.

My parents played music constantly. and they played everything--Tchaikovsky, Cream, Horace Silver, Olatunji, Dylan, Verdi, etc. My fascination with music was inevitable. I was kind enough to extend the same favor to my children.

My Father and 3 older brothers (classical, Simon & Garfunkel, Cat Stevens, Tim Weisberg, ect) plus I grew up in the seventies and eighties when that (listening to stereo or radio) was 1 of the major forms of entertainment. I always was around a stereo for the first twenty years of my life. But, Around the age of 12 years my sister was dating this really rich older gentlemen and he had a Complete McIntosh system with all separate components and XR7 speakers too. At night with it all light up (not to mention the sound) I was in AWE! Prior to that I thought my dads Pioneer 4 channel was the cats meow. SO, I think the question should also include: When did you get into High-Fi??

Top 40 radio in Baltimore in the late 50's early 60's, that was my start, and its grown since. My oldest brother kept a "transistor radio" to his ear every Saturday for the top ten countdown. Then the British Invasion hit, and it was off to the races. My next older brother took me to concerts, but my first was with my Dad, my 12th b'day, Beatles.

Brian Wilson. His compositions and arrangements got me listening more and more deeply than I would have imagined possible before.

God and his participation in the development of the human ear. Along with being the youngest of seven in a house of Elvis fans and my sisters records. Also I have a neighbor that bought "seemingly at the time" every R&R record known to mankind. We listened for hours and I thnk back on how poorly he treated those records...Argggh! The equipment started with my first portable record player that some may remember had the speaker between the platter and tonearm. What a catastrophe of design that was! The speaker vibrating the record as it played. Once I was smart enough to wire a headphone jack and listen it just kept getting better with each new piece of equipment. But in the end, it has to be the ears:)

None of my parents or relatives ever shown any interest in music at all...
I had my 2 main toys: phonograph and 1/8 accordion(post WW2 trophey). So I was listening to phonograph, then playing accordion what I listened in phonograph. I was finding records from deserted homes, garbage, some neighbors would just give it to me when my grandma asked if there are any around. When phonograph failed, I was able to listen by spining records with finger at constant speed. When I tried to fix the spring, it jumped out of casing ceiling high and I couldn't put it together. I was so upset for long time so my dad bought me tube console finally watching me play accordion he had no idea how to retrieve the sound from :-)