my life in music, chapter 1,002...

My early exposure to music was pretty unusual and radical for a six-year-old. It was the American forces network radio and BBC overseas programming !

So my childhood memories are songs such as Les Paul and Mary Ford's The World is Waiting for the Sunrise and Hank Williams' Hey, Good Looking and the giants of the immediate post-war music scene, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Andrew Sisters, Eddy Arnold, Glen Miller, you get the picture!

However the first album I acquired reflected a peculiar fascination for a preteen with the big band sounds of the 1930's. That first album was a recording of Benny Goodman and his band's radio performances of the late 30's. They were issued in the mid-1950's. If I am correct in my thinking, a neighbour had a copy and I heard them there. With my early Calcutta immersion into the sound anyway, these recordings struck a chord with me. (To coin a corny phrase.) I went on to acquire many other Benny Goodman albums and they are still with me down in the storage room of our Condo.