What was your first music that you paid for?

I asked my mom to get me She Loves You, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah by The Beatles, on 45RPM. She came back with You Can't Do That with Money Can't Buy Me Love on the flipside, explaining that She Loves You was sold out and the guy at the record store told her I would be okay with this one instead. I was a little hesitant, thinking my dear old mom might have gotten hoodwinked by some
smooth talking salesman, but when that platter hit the needle -- I was in heaven. What a great record! I started with a "suitcase" style record player,
which usually needed a nickle on the tone arm to keep the needle in the
groove, then graduated to the kind where the speakers were detachable and
finally, a Gerard Turn Table connected to a Pioneer receiver/pre-amp with
separate amplifier. I always had a stereo in my room, always had a more serious set-up than my friends, it always seemed to hold more importance for me than most of the people I knew. I was hooked early. Started with the Beatles and a sears record player.

The Temptations: Greatest Hits (?) and Bob Dylan: Highway 61. I think the Dylan may have been first but I'm no longer certain.

Growing up in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the 60's, we listened to a station out of Windsor, Ontario, CKLW AM. It was either garage rock or soul for us. Bubble Puppy-Hot Smoke and Sasafras, Blues Magoos-Pipe Dream, There's a Chance We Can Make It, then there are the Detroit Bands: Amboy Dukes-Baby Please Don't Go, Rationals-Respect, SRC, Stooges, MC5, Underdogs, Up, Iguanas (Iggy Pop's first band), Bob Seeger System, Mitch Ryder, Unrelated Segments, so many others, they go on forever.

Mine was, at the age of 12 '' Tom Jones Live at the Flamenco in Las Vegas'' I did not have a clue who Tom Jones was, I just wanted to buy my first LP. Listened to this record for a whole year before getting my second LP, SGT Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band....when I heard this for the first time...''Wow''

I had a cheap mono 1 speaker portable record player, to which I connected another ''speaker'', a $ 2,99 Radio Shack 6'' driver that I taped to a cardboard box in which I had cut a 6'' hole with a knife. So there I had it , ''Stereo'' sound!

I went to kilobuck systems since, ( with kilobuck speakers ). Funny, my memory brings me back to a time where this joke of a system (by our snobby audiophile standards) is the best-sounding system I ever had, listening to ''with a little help from my firends'' between my two mono speakers in my bedroom, scratches and all....now THAT was fun !