I was born into a family of singers of Broadway Show Tunes of the 40's & 50's and of Movie Musicals of the '30's & 40's. My parents didn't play instruments, but they loved their music and there was always music on the 'Victrola' filling the house. We lived down the block from my dad's brother and his family, and they had a Wurlitzer organ that he'd play and lead the gathered clan in sing-alongs. My cousins & I were thrust to center stage at these gatherings as soon as we could stand.
My earliest birthday and Christmas gifts were the typical children's instruments...xylophone, a 'Schroeder' piano, drums...
... then, at age 5, came this particular Christmas gift I'd asked Santa for, that'd I'd seen played on TV by this adult with funny ears on his head, just like all the kids he lead in song, that mystified me until I heard Elvis Presley on the radio & TV in '56...suddenly, I knew what I wanted to do with music, and I 'assumed the position' with my genuine Mouseguitar:
The first record I ever bought was an Elvis 4-cut 45 (Hound Dog, Don't Be Cruel, My Baby Left Me, I Want You-I Need You-I Love You). I'd sing along as I thumped hopefully on the hopelessly and perpetually out-of-tune plastic ukulele.
An older cousin (3 years older) gave me a real guitar a few years later, a Sears Silvertone acoustic he handed off to me when he got his Sears Silvertone Danelectro. It was hard to play, but he showed me some stuff that was just amazing, especially since he played lefty, strung righty (chords upside down) and GAS overtook me to this day by the age of 11.
I was happy to make progress for a couple of years, getting sporadic lessons from him with Duane Eddy, Chet Atkins licks, The Ventures, other surf and country stuff, but these were instrumentals, kinda boring to me, and he didn't sing. Then he showed me some Chuck Berry licks until that same cousin, Canadian with early access to stuff coming over the pond from the Mother Country, turned me on to this album he'd just got of 4 young guys in suits and funny haircuts from England in the summer or fall of '63, and one of the tunes on it was Chuck's Roll Over Beethoven...a tune I knew how to play and could sing.
As with Strummy & Spudman, the Beatles kicked the whole thing up a notch.
Sunday night, Feb. 9, 1964, was truly a life-changing experience, and I was in my first garage band within a week.
^^
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