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Increasingly, when I have guests over, they find themselves in the music lounge and they ask questions. I know some are sporting their armchair psychiatrist hats and coming up with their own diagnosis on how I must suffer from a variety of mental disorders. They can't figure out how to link my disparate taste and the look of confusion seems to boggle them on occasion. It is times like this, I ask myself, “How did I get this way?” It is safe to say that the first people to thank (or blame, if you so desire) are my parents. I don't have much memory of my grunting and crawling years but I have heard the stories. During my toddler years, my Mom would put me in my little playpen where I would bounce around while the television played Bandstand, Hullaballo, Shindig and and the like. These television music programs would be my first exposure to The Lovin' Spoonful, The Byrds, The Kinks, and numerous other sixties pop acts. It wasn't just the television either. My parents had records too. They grew up with country music on the radio and came of age during the rock and roll explosion. Dad's parents owned a St. Louis nightclub that aside from dealing in certain activities we won't discuss, they booked acts like Ike Turner’s Rhythm Kings and other soul and R&B acts of the time. Exposure to those sounds lead to Dad developing a fondness for raunchy R&B in addition to country music and rockabilly. Mom was somewhat of a beatnik. She was into the folk music scene and startd to dig bebop jazz. Peter Paul and Mary, Phil Ochs, Gerry Mulligan and Dizzy Gillespie were often heard along with the wild array of pop sounds like The Mamas and The Papas, Dean Martin, show tunes, and Motown. When I moved beyond the crib, I would always want to play with the records and my first “favorite” record wasn't “Little White Duck” but rather Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass "Whipped Cream and Other Delights". I swear everybody owned that record. To be honest, I think my three year old self was really into the album cover, thus installing not only my obsession with records, but a fixation with buxom sixties pin-ups. Records were common in the home. When we moved to Europe in 1969, music listening was the standard family entertainment. Television reception was pretty much non-existence. A trip to the store would often involve picking up a record or two for evening fun. Many times, a recod was chosen by me and I could pick anything I wanted and I would. By the time we returned to the United States, recordgeekitis symptoms were beginning to show, thanks in part to Mom and Dad but also some wild and freaky glam rock loving babysitters. They would be an essential part in my development in “growing up wrong” and can't be overlooked. I'll save those for another time, ‘cause right now I've got “The Lonely Bull” goin' thru my head and I can't get rid of it. Oh wait, that's not on "Whipped Cream", it's on some other Tijuana Brass record. Gotta go dig it out.
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