FirstMeasure Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 I was watching "to Have and Have Not" the other day and I realized Hoagie Carmichael's character "Cricket" had a big influence on me as a child. Particularly this song and the scene where he writes a song and then performs it the same night. Plus the fact the he never gets unnerved, even when bullets are flying he's on the piano playing it cool. What a musical Icon to grow up with. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaG0pGf-8HE Anyone else have a forgotten or unrealized influence from early childhood? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pippy Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 Thomas 'Fats' Waller. He instills the most wonderful sense of Fun in his playing. Count Basie. How to say so much using so few notes in such great style. Unfortunately, I can't extract as much fun as Fats and I can't play with the masterful economy of Basie......... P. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobB Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 My folks used to have an old 78 rpm record of Hank Snow's "I'm Movin' On". I wore that record out from playing it so much. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti4G1AX0v-g Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daryl M Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 The first album I remember ever listening to over and over was 'The Dynamic Stonewall Jackson'. It was in a handfull of albums my dad had. I can still remember every word of every song on it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carv3r Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 emily remler. she left my mind for a while. and thats a shame. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milod Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 I'd say just about all the music I heard when I was a kid made a subliminal impact on me and how I want music to be no matter what I'm pickin'. I think what we've heard up to our teen years, that we rejected then for probably 20-30 years, has more effect on us than most of us care to admit. I had an album - lost in a fire - of trumpet player Ruby Braff doing standards with bassist Milt Hinton, guitarist Mundell Lowe and I can't remember the drummer (it's been close to 50 years ago) that still affects how I see music as something to be tasteful, melodic and close to "the tune" rather than just improv over a chord structure. That's also more or less even what, if you listen closely, Chuck Berry's leads were if you listen to his voice. Louis Armstrong did the scat thing with voice or trumpet that got wilder, but usually with the original tune as the basis for what he ran around. m Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rct Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 rct Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FirstMeasure Posted November 7, 2011 Author Share Posted November 7, 2011 Love that "Movin' On", I've only ever heard ray Charles do it. Had no idea it was so country. Milo - That's just what Im' talkin' about. Influences that were so early they are practically subliminal. I tend to think our musical tastes were purer and uninhibited by trend and proper clothing before we get into Junior High or High School. carv3r - I like the way you put that. "Left my Mind" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milod Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 Hmmmm... Before 5th or 6th grade? <grin> You realize that functionally you're talking pre "rock" and in some cases before there was even enough TV signal where I lived to really watch the tube? <chortle> m Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FirstMeasure Posted November 7, 2011 Author Share Posted November 7, 2011 Milo What about radio and movies. I'm sure you went to some matinees and saw some music. Think about the music in Merry Melodies cartoons and stuff like that. Of course things were different by the time I was in school, but it was around 7th grade when I noticed my classmates Wearing their music like a new pair of designer jeans instead of listening for the enjoyment of music. In fact I wonder how many people were influenced by the music in their favorite cartoons and don't even realize it. Those animated shorts had some of the best music from the 30's and 40's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milod Posted November 7, 2011 Share Posted November 7, 2011 Firstmeasure... One neat thing about a small town in those days was, indeed, the Saturday afternoon movie matinee. A dime bought the ticket, so for two bits (25 cents), you could watch several cartoons, a 1930s serial and a B movie, and gorge on popcorn and candy. So from about age 5 until I hadda take responsibility around age 10 for weekend work in Dad's shop or was going to college classes with my Mom, those movie afternoons were wonderful. The radio in the evening was more like today's television programming. After school if I wasn't playing baseball or football or something else with the neighborhood kids, I'd "watch" the radio - you really did, right at the dial, for the B-bar-B ranch and stuff. Radio mornings that I remember were heavy on the day's news - as in the Korean War - and pop music of the day otherwise. Swing still was "big," but big-name singers rather than big bands were the thing I most recall. That and classical music Mom liked. There wasn't any FM radio we could get out in the boonies. Later on, after we got tv, we could see Kate Smith and Bob Crosby and stuff. I had that huge multi-band console with a nice big antenna, so I did hear stuff like some blues from Chicago. Dixieland. Country. Whatever. Frankly I don't think in ways there was that much difference in the music I heard pre-1955 and what Dad would have heard when he graduated high school in '36. In fact, since live radio music was rapidly on the way out, I think I probably heard less diversity. There was the pop stuff, though, at summer baseball games. I remember unchained melody and some Brenda Lee stuff, Jo Stafford and "You Belong to Me..." In ways I think my propensity for fat chords rather than modal "lead guitar" dates back to those days. Maybe not. I dunno. Dad sang some Woody Guthrie stuff, he and Mom did duets for community events. But again, a lotta the stuff "we" did was pretty much out of the '30s and before. Don't forget "we" were just digging out of depression and war, and as the cars were just beginning to change from late 1930s designs, so also was music. After '55? That's about when rock started bopping in. <grin with me if you get that one> m Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FirstMeasure Posted November 8, 2011 Author Share Posted November 8, 2011 LOL. I'm grinning. That's the influences I was talking about, all that stuff that shaped our ears and activities before we "Decided" what we wanted to be influenced by. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zigzag Posted November 8, 2011 Share Posted November 8, 2011 milod's not that much older than me, but we are from different areas of the country and a somewhat different culture, him from the rural west (the real west), and me from an urban area of the southeast. The earliest music I remember was from the late '50s and very early sixties. Color TV had been invented, but they were rare (the kid whose house had one was the most popular kid on the block). Radio was big, but cumbersome tube radios gave way to transistor pocket radios. Buddy Holly and Elvis were popular on the radio, along with early R&B, and country music filled our Saturday afternoon TV, of which there were only two stations available. I remember Ernest Tubb was popular: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iL8xnVbj5Ts My parents were no help since they listened to Percy Faith on the RCA, which I later converted into an amplifier for my single pup Kent guitar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MissouriPicker Posted November 8, 2011 Share Posted November 8, 2011 Great thread. Very interesting.......I suspect we're all influenced by singer/songwriters/performers that we often forget to give credit to. Before I ever zeroed-in on Johnny Cash, The Beatles, etc., I'm sure as a little tyke I was hearing lots of Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Doris Day, Bing Crosby, Bill Haley and The Comets, and many others. My folks listened to a lot of swing music, and they loved Mitch Miller. The first version of Ghost Riders in The Sky I heard was by Von Monroe, I think. That version is my favorite to this day, but I've really enjoyed the renditions by Cash and Willie Nelson. I think I've even been influenced to some degree by The Mills Brothers. What it all comes down to is that there is very little that is truly new. There are only so many chord progressions. There are very few melodies that cannot be shown to have some similarity to something written before. Again, very little is truly new. Even the likes of Bob Dylan, Joanie Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot, Johnny Cash, McCartney and Lennon, Carol King, etc. have their influences. To a lesser or greater degree, we're probably influenced by literally everyone we've ever known in more than a casual way..Good topic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pippy Posted November 8, 2011 Share Posted November 8, 2011 ...In fact I wonder how many people were influenced by the music in their favorite cartoons and don't even realize it. Those animated shorts had some of the best music from the 30's and 40's. There one particular 'Tom And Jerry' cartoon, the soundtrack of which my father recorded on an old reel-to-reel tape deck. It had 'Spike' the bulldog singing "Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby?" to his son (whose name I forget. Sorry). I LOVED singing tha song as a small child. P. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FirstMeasure Posted November 8, 2011 Author Share Posted November 8, 2011 There one particular 'Tom And Jerry' cartoon, the soundtrack of which my father recorded on an old reel-to-reel tape deck. It had 'Spike' the bulldog singing "Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby?" to his son (whose name I forget. Sorry). I LOVED singing tha song as a small child. P. Heck yeah! Tom and Jerry had some of the best music. I also remember an old black and white cartoon with Cab Calloway singing Minnie the Moocher. It wasn't a Tom and Jerry, but it was a smoking rendition of the tune. There was also an old cartoon with cats in school learning how to be cool, I'm pretty sure Bing Crosby was the teacher, That one was a big influence on me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milod Posted November 8, 2011 Share Posted November 8, 2011 I think I remember Calloway used in a number of cartoons - and I think I remember the one with Minnie the Moocher. But again, if made before 1955... in a lotta ways it was pretty much the same stuff my Dad was hearing after he graduated high school in '36. For really horrid music, though, some of the organ stuff (B3????) for the soap operas on radio and early TV were baaaaad, and I don't mean good by any definition. m Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FirstMeasure Posted November 8, 2011 Author Share Posted November 8, 2011 Oh my, I forgot a B3 could be used for those horrid tones. It's funny, I loved those old "Variety" movies that they made in the 30's. Like "International House" with W.C.Fields, Burns and Allen, Cab Calloway, and all the stars of the day. When I was a kid I just thought the music was cool and the jokes were funny. I didn't think of it as my Grandparents Entertainment, just entrainment. It's too bad we start getting into what's new and hot instead of what moves us. I have friends that cannot watch a Black and White movie, but they can sit through every Harry Potter movie, even though they don't like them. I'll never understand it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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