The first time I heard ...

Subject: RE: The first time I heard ...
From: Barry Finn
Date: 03 May 06 - 12:45 PM

Us early teens use to hang out on the West Dennis beach on Cape Cod in the summer time, probably around 64 or 65. We'd sing beach boys stuff & two brothers that played guitar would play. Some how the House of the Rising Sun crept in & I was out looking for folk music, ending up at the Newport Folk Festivals a few yrs later. It took another ten yrs before I started more than just singing along though.
Barry

Subject: RE: The first time I heard ...
From: Wolfgang
Date: 03 May 06 - 08:41 AM

I heard 'James Larkin' in a pub in Dingle town
I heard 'Farewell to the Rhonddha' in Slattery's in Dublin
I heard 'The Holly bears a berry' in the German radio and it was a sound I immediately fell in love with but I didn't get the name of the group. I described the sound to everybody I met and about five years later found the name of the group: Watersons.

Some more stories but those songs I still recollect where or when I heard them first mostly are still dear to me.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: The first time I heard ...
From: David C. Carter
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 07:41 PM

I was watching a play on the BBC.I think it was called something like-Mad House On Vine Street,can't quite remember exactly.There was this strange guy with a guitar, singing a song about a Swan On The River.Didn't know who it was,but I went to a record store the following week,and there it was;Freewheeling Bob Dylan.
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.
The Weight.
Visions Of Johanna.
Pastures Of Plenty.
Like A Rolling Stone.
Love Minus Zero.
Can't recall them all.

Subject: RE: The first time I heard ...
From: Cats
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 12:53 PM

Many years ago, I 'gave up' Folk Music as nothing I heard inspired me any more. I gave up singing, I gave up going to folk clubs. One day I was on the Torpoint Ferry and the navy decided to play boats, which means the ferry stops mid channel to let the ships out. Hot summer day, on the water, waiting and waiting... get the picture. I found under the seat of my 2CV a battered old tape which I had no idea was there. It had one song on it ~ Rod Shearman's 'Big Fella'. After I stopped crying I played it over and over again and decided I was wrong and there was good stuff out there. I had learned it by the time the ferry eventually pulled into Plymouth! The odd thing is, though, that I never found that tape again, I don't know where it had come from nor where it went... needless to say you have Uncle Rod to thank [or not] for me singing again.

Subject: RE: The first time I heard ...
From: fat B****rd
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 12:16 PM

....Bob Dylan was in 1964.I was off work, got up in the afternoon and heard (admittedly on Pirate Eadio) a horrible whining noise through all the interference. "That was Bob Dylan with My Back Pages" said the announcer. "Christ" said I "Is that 'im ?"

Subject: RE: The first time I heard ...
From: Big Tim
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 11:53 AM

1949, Co. Donegal. My father Barney came cycling up the Hill with a "wireless" tied to the handlebars. My folks got the thing going and somebody was singing "Wonderful Copenhagen". I was three years old and it was the first song that I remember hearing.

Subject: RE: The first time I heard ...
From: jacqui.c
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 09:06 AM

1961 - I was 13 going on 14 and the song on the church youth club record player was Ebony Eyes. I've been a fan of the Everley Brothers ever since....


In the early 70's the film 'Play Misty For Me' was on the TV and I really fell for the theme song - 'First Time Ever I Saw Your Face', sung by Roberta Flack.

More recently, at the Hertford Folk Club one of our regulars, Pete, would do a version of John O'Dreams that could quieten the room in about ten seconds flat. Wonderful song when well sung!

Subject: RE: The first time I heard ...
From: Deckman
Date: 29 Apr 06 - 09:22 PM

Hey Kendall ... Don't ferget "I gave My Love Cherry!" CHEERS, Bob

Subject: RE: The first time I heard ...
From: Rapparee
Date: 29 Apr 06 - 09:22 PM

Crossing the Mississippi River (on a bridge) and the Clancy's "Brennan On The Moor" came on over WLS (Chicago). Then PP&M and the Kingston Trio and the Chad Mitchell Trio and then a girlfriend introduced me to Paxton and Ochs and I found Buffy and Lightfoot and the rest on my own.

Of course, my g'g' aunt and my grandmother always sang things like "Comin' Round the Mountain" and "Oh Dear, What Can The Matter Be" -- and I wish now I'd appreciated them then. And the ones in German, like "Du, Du, Liegst Mir in Herzen" as well.

Subject: RE: The first time I heard ...
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Apr 06 - 09:19 PM

Some first time heard songs that blew my mind...

Like A Rolling Stone
Now That The Buffalo's Gone
Blowin' In The Wind (first heard it by PPM)
Hey Joe (Hendrix)
Hey Jude
My Country Tis of thy People You're Dying
Piney Wood Hills
Clouds
Michael From Mountains
Gates of Eden
Mr Tambourine Man
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
Roads To Moscow
Love Chronicles
Sounds of Silence

And that's just scratching the surface...

Subject: RE: The first time I heard ...
From: kendall
Date: 29 Apr 06 - 09:14 PM

1946 Buryl Ives singing Leather wing bat. Later, Brennan on the Moore and Henry Martin. I was hooked. Then the Weavers singing Irene goodnight, and On top of old smokey and I was landed. A slave to folk music to this day.

Subject: RE: The first time I heard ...
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 29 Apr 06 - 08:57 PM

1970 George Harrisons My Sweet Lord on an old shortwave radio in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean... I loved it because at the time I was in love with a girl called Laura; and because of the crappy quality of shortwave thought thats what he was singing My Sweet Laura... ahhhh memories. (Laura was smart enough to marry someone else a few months later)

Subject: RE: The first time I heard ...
From: Deckman
Date: 29 Apr 06 - 08:12 PM

It was in 1962, or 1963, or 1964, or 1965. I'm SURE the next posting will correct me. I was sitting in my living room in Felton, California, listening to the radio and reading a book ... in English.

I heard some guy singing "Blowing In The Wind." The radio said his name was Bob Dylan. I said to myself: "MYSELF! I don't know who this guy is, but he's sure GOT IT!"

Unfortunatly for me, I've always thought that that was his bestest song ever. But, you know .... I'm REALLY olde! CHEERS, Bob(deckman)Nelson

Subject: RE: The first time I heard ...
From: GUEST,Wesley S
Date: 29 Apr 06 - 06:56 PM

I was walking my dog the first time I heard Purple Haze by Jimi Hendrix.It was on a tiny transistor radio. Remember those?

Subject: RE: The first time I heard ...
From: Little Robyn
Date: 29 Apr 06 - 05:37 PM

June 1967, at the 3rd Wellington Folk Festival (in NZ), a group sang Wild Mountain Thyme, unaccompanied, in multi-part harmony and it was a WOW! moment.
In fact, that was when I switched from singing mainly American folk to actively searching for more British unaccompanied songs.
Then we discovered the Watersons, the Young Tradition and the rest, as they say, is history.
Robyn

Subject: The first time I heard ...
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 29 Apr 06 - 05:00 PM

I can clearly remember the first time I heard certain songs. Back in 1964(?) I attended a folk music concert at the Hope Hall, Liverpool, and at some point in the evening one of the acts sang " Shoals of Herring", and, when the refrain came around, a group of people sitting near me joined in. I thought it was magical. I also remember the first time I heard " Three Score and Ten"; it was in a folk club in St Austil, Cornwall in the summer of 1967.

p.s. The Hope Hall later morphed into the Everyman Theatre and presently hosts a weekly folk club run by Hughie ( ex-Spinner ) Jones.