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What was your 'keystone' album?

I bought my first LP in 1958 with my Christmas money, Duane Eddy - Have twangy guitar will travel. Then when I started work as an apprentice in 1962 I was buying singles, mainly Stones, Byrds, Loving Spoonful it wasn’t till about 1966 listening to Radio Caroline I heard Love - My little red book, I was hooked bought the their 1st album, followed by Da Capo which led to Forever Changes for me my keystone.

Regards,

Martin
 
musicman56 said:
Blimey! That's 2 for Tubular Bells. Who would've thought? It's one of those albums that I wish I'd bough sooner as I missed the original B/W twins virgin label and ended up with the coloured version. Damn!
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I started trading records from a very young age, so my collection actually contains very few physical items I bought in the early days as I’ve upgraded the copy several times over the years seeking that ‘mint first press from country of artist origin’ or very close to it. This was all the more relevant as the local record shop (Rox, a Wirral chain) used to sell many budget imports that were no where near as good as original UK pressings (poor pressings, single sleeve rather than gatefold, missing inserts etc), so I upgraded all of those decades ago. The penny dropped here with Hawkwind’s Space Ritual which I knew should have a wonderful fold-out sleeve, and mine was in a bog-standard gatefold (long since replaced with a UK 1st press).

I was thinking about this thread earlier and trying to figure out what my oldest actual album is, i.e. the physical item I have owned the longest and still have that copy, and I’m pretty sure it is Futuristic Dragon by T. Rex. I saw them live as a 13 year old (‘76) and still have the programme stored in the sleeve. I’ve got some older singles, but any albums older than that have been replaced with better copies or have been sold and later re-bought over the years.

PS My first copy of TB owned as a school kid was on the tan label I think, long since sold and replaced with the b&w label laminated sleeve original. There was a time about 20 years ago where you could still find close to mint originals in the £1 bins of some shops who only cared about titles, not pressings. I liberated a fair few that way, kept the best myself and cashed the rest in at £15 or so. Likely worth a good bit more now. FWIW it is *very* hard to find a quiet one, later pressings seem better in this regards. Same with TD, getting a quiet ‘two-virgin’ 1st press of Phaedra, Rubycon, Aqua etc is a real challenge, all good sounding cuts, just not quiet vinyl.
 
I've been reading this thread with great interest and trying to think what a "keystone" album actually is. Does it set the stage for your first flush of youthful enthusiasm - Fresh Cream ("it was the blooze man") purchased in 1968 a few years after release or maybe Wheels of Fire. Was it when I discovered the joys of illicit substances - Electric Ladyland, Live Dead, Electric Music for the Mind & Body ....... How about the eureka moment when I first heard King Tubby meets the Rockers Uptown which made me a lifelong Reggae fan. Bitches Brew - oh f*** and then more Miles and Coltrane. Or is it just my favourite album ever - Forever Changes. And then there's Revolver the album and the name of the record store in Bristol which kickstarted my career in the Music Business. No idea really!
 
mikechadwick said:
I've been reading this thread with great interest and trying to think what a "keystone" album actually is. Does it set the stage for your first flush of youthful enthusiasm - Fresh Cream ("it was the blooze man") purchased in 1968 a few years after release or maybe Wheels of Fire. Was it when I discovered the joys of illicit substances - Electric Ladyland, Live Dead, Electric Music for the Mind & Body ....... How about the eureka moment when I first heard King Tubby meets the Rockers Uptown which made me a lifelong Reggae fan. Bitches Brew - oh f*** and then more Miles and Coltrane. Or is it just my favourite album ever - Forever Changes. And then there's Revolver the album and the name of the record store in Bristol which kickstarted my career in the Music Business. No idea really!
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I know, it's difficult. As I stated in my OP my keystone was the album that broke me out of the box named 'singles chart' and into an almost infinite world of 'other stuff' and I became almost overnight a rockbore of the first order able to hold my own in the 6th form common room and carry around LP covers without fear of ridicule. Does that help?
 
Tony L said:
I started trading records from a very young age, so my collection actually contains very few physical items I bought in the early days as I’ve upgraded the copy several times over the years seeking that ‘mint first press from country of artist origin’ or very close to it. This was all the more relevant as the local record shop (Rox, a Wirral chain) used to sell many budget imports that were no where near as good as original UK pressings (poor pressings, single sleeve rather than gatefold, missing inserts etc), so I upgraded all of those decades ago. The penny dropped here with Hawkwind’s Space Ritual which I knew should have a wonderful fold-out sleeve, and mine was in a bog-standard gatefold (long since replaced with a UK 1st press).

I was thinking about this thread earlier and trying to figure out what my oldest actual album is, i.e. the physical item I have owned the longest and still have that copy, and I’m pretty sure it is Futuristic Dragon by T. Rex. I saw them live as a 13 year old (‘76) and still have the programme stored in the sleeve. I’ve got some older singles, but any albums older than that have been replaced with better copies or have been sold and later re-bought over the years.

PS My first copy of TB owned as a school kid was on the tan label I think, long since sold and replaced with the b&w label laminated sleeve original. There was a time about 20 years ago where you could still find close to mint originals in the £1 bins of some shops who only cared about titles, not pressings. I liberated a fair few that way, kept the best myself and cashed the rest in at £15 or so. Likely worth a good bit more now. FWIW it is *very* hard to find a quiet one, later pressings seem better in this regards. Same with TD, getting a quiet ‘two-virgin’ 1st press of Phaedra, Rubycon, Aqua etc is a real challenge, all good sounding cuts, just not quiet vinyl.
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As I said originally, I have just replaced 'Second Album' with a pristine green WB label first pressing. What I didn't admit to was that I had originally bought a replacement in the late 70s (a beige label Warner Brothers copy) and THREW THE ORIGINAL AWAY! Aaargh!!
 
My selection was based on the album that shaped my preferred music genre for many years to come and to a lesser extent still today.
 
My younger years were mainly rock (first concert Scorpions), Beatles (first Album), ELO (first single),...not necessarily in that order, but I pretty much listened exclusively to 'rock'. At Uni I diversified into the Cure, Reggae, John Martyn, James etc and I guess typical 'student' music.
I think my keystone happened on a skiing trip in Austria (booked on a teletext offer, remember those!), staying in a chalet, and some other guests had brought Dubnobasswithmyheadman and played it over dinner. A whole new world...
Then later there was the first time I heard early 70's Miles (Filmore East)...and that was a whole new trip...maybe more of a keystone...still deciding.
 
webster said:
My selection was based on the album that shaped my preferred music genre for many years to come and to a lesser extent still today.
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Mine too. Coltranology was the time I realised what’s current or being hyped at any given moment may not be anywhere near as good as what went before.
 
Big Tabs said:
I am taking 'keystone' album to mean which album I purchased early on, that my musical tastes have been built upon.

The Human League - ' Travelogue' 1980. - I was 15 yrs.old.


it could also easily be The Specials eponymous album from 1979.


My tastes are so broad though I don't think you could look at these albums and see obvious lines to what I listen to nowadays.

(I still have those two albums, and still play them often.)
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Two great albums

Early Human League were a very important band in my youth, Reproduction and Travelogue still get played regularly

Keystone album though?

Difficult to choose just one but, London Calling - The Clash has to be up there for me

I was massively into the The Jam at the time and Setting Sons has got to be a close second
 
The keystone album.

I have been pondering this since the thread started.

Whilst I had “got” into music, mostly hard rock/heavy metal, through my immediate friends, it was the arrival of Live 79 which got me exploring, and from that point, well, the rest is history.
 
For me, the keystone album is the one that sets the tone for your taste in music for the rest of your life, and in my case, Trout Mask Replica was the first record that I bought out of my own money too.
 
Was back in 1969. Still at school so could never afford to buy L.P.'s so used to go 50/50 with a friend with similar music taste.
We would keep them for a week and then swap over.
The first two (can't remember the order) were MC5 - Kick out the Jams and Goodbye Cream.
Third one was It's a Beautiful Day or could be Frank Zappa - Hot Rats (we bought both) so fairly eclectic.
 
For me, there were 2 'keystone' albums that put paid to me. Strangely, one of them was also Curved Air Second Album, very much for the same reasons as you describe. The other one was Trilogy by Emerson, Lake & Palmer. This, for me, was their Magnum Opus. Two amazing bands, highly sophisticated and technical, and very much on top of their game.

Time has not eroded their impact.
 
I was born in 1957, so grew up with The Beatles and other 60s music. Among the first LPs I got were Sgt Pepper and Bridge Over Troubled Water. When I was 15 I met a slightly older gang of friends and that was when I really started to get seriously interested in music. They liked the Dead, the Airplane and QMS, my keystone albums would be Live/Dead and Happy Trails. It's not a coincidence they also introduced me to the pleasures of weed and hash, and later psychedelics.

The other big influence on my musical taste was Charlie Gillett's radio show, Sunday lunchtimes on BBC Radio London in the early and mid 70s. He played a wide range of music we would probably now slot into World and Americana and was at the centre of pub-rock.

British and Irish folk music comes into it somewhere too. The artist I have seen most in my life must be Martin Carthy.
 
I don't thing there was really a keystone album for me... I'd bought Queens "Day at the races" and really liked it and a bit later at age of about 15 there was Tubeway Army "Replicas" and OMD first album which I guess could be said to have got me into the genre of "new romantic"/electronica.
Way before that though my parents copies of Stan Getz with Joao Gilberto "Getz/Gilberto" and Sinatra live at the sands with Count Bassie had already started my love of jazz and swing. I still have my Dads copies of these to this day and they get regular play and sound great... even if they are both in real mono!
 
vince rocker said:
I was born in 1957, so grew up with The Beatles and other 60s music. Among the first LPs I got were Sgt Pepper and Bridge Over Troubled Water. When I was 15 I met a slightly older gang of friends and that was when I really started to get seriously interested in music. They liked the Dead, the Airplane and QMS, my keystone albums would be Live/Dead and Happy Trails. It's not a coincidence they also introduced me to the pleasures of weed and hash, and later psychedelics.

The other big influence on my musical taste was Charlie Gillett's radio show, Sunday lunchtimes on BBC Radio London in the early and mid 70s. He played a wide range of music we would probably now slot into World and Americana and was at the centre of pub-rock.

British and Irish folk music comes into it somewhere too. The artist I have seen most in my life must be Martin Carthy.
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Small world etc

The Zigzag list I mentioned above took me to Happy Trains, Live Dead and Crown of Creation as well as Gram Parsons. I used to love the Honky Tonk show as well. While I was at school I worked on weekends at a petrol station in South Mimms and used to listens to Honky Tonk and the Robbie Vincent show. When I was 11 I had some guitar lessons with a couple of blokes who were huge Martin Carty fans.

All of these things leave their traces don't they? While my main listening these days is jazz I still love that late 60s / early 70s British folk and the Americana and British pub rock that Gillet played - and 70s funk and great country tunes.

Have you got the Honky Tonk CD that Charley Records put out a few years back ?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B002KWLUW8/?tag=pinkfishmedia-21

I can remember hearing quite a few of these while on my shift.
 
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Probably "Return of the Grievous Angel" by Gram Parsons. Such a tragic life mirrored in that fragile voice. In turn introduced me to a lot of new artists, leading to actually meeting Emmylou at one of her concerts..a keystome moment!
 
bossjw said:
Probably "Return of the Grievous Angel" by Gram Parsons. Such a tragic life mirrored in that fragile voice. In turn introduced me to a lot of new artists, leading to actually meeting Emmylou at one of her concerts..a keystome moment!
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You met Emmylou? Wow! I thought I'd done well to shake hands with Bob Weir! I still have my copy of "Return of the Grievous Angel" bought when it came out because I heard it on Honky Tonk.
To tie this in to my posting and the reply by @kjb above, I went to Emmylou's first UK show (a theatre in Victoria but I forget which, 1974?) with James Burton and Glen D Hardin in the band, which was of course brilliant, and saw Charlie Gillett in the audience. The next day he interviewed them on the radio.
 
kjb said:
Small world etc

The Zigzag list I mentioned above took me to Happy Trains, Live Dead and Crown of Creation as well as Gram Parsons. I used to love the Honky Tonk show as well. While I was at school I worked on weekends at a petrol station in South Mimms and used to listens to Honky Tonk and the Robbie Vincent show. When I was 11 I had some guitar lessons with a couple of blokes who were huge Martin Carty fans.

All of these things leave their traces don't they? While my main listening these days is jazz I still love that late 60s / early 70s British folk and the Americana and British pub rock that Gillet played - and 70s funk and great country tunes.

Have you got the Honky Tonk CD that Charley Records put out a few years back ?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B002KWLUW8/?tag=pinkfishmedia-21

I can remember hearing quite a few of these while on my shift.
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No, I hadn't seen that CD, thanks for the tip. I've got a lot of the tracks anyway but it would be good to have them all in one place. I looked at the track listing and immediately started singing
"Prettiest thing that I've ever seen, Mardi Gras Indians down in New Orleans... " :)
I bet your music shelves look a lot like mine!
 
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