The Riley Family album

For no reason whatsoever, I thought today, I would write a little bit about how my family have influence my musical tastes.

I guess sharing a bedroom with my brother who is 5 years older than me as that introduced me to house and indie music. In there I could hear 808 state, Stone Roses, Primal Scream, Happy Mondays and everything else he was getting taped off his friends in the early 90s. When he moved out, he actually became a bit more heavy rock and its actually quite rare that we find records we are both equally passionate about anymore. I guess the alt-country / folk type stuff is our only meeting ground anymore.

My dad was a teenager in the late 60s / early 70s and as a kid I never really liked a lot of his records. I remember he had a Beatles compilation called "Rock 'N' Roll Music" which had a drawing of someone holding the sleeve but you could never place your hands correctly to match how it wrapped around the sleeve. (I guess you have to see it to understand). He also had "Abbey Road" and a Beach Boys Greatest Hits that I liked but then there was far too much Moody Blues and Rod Stewart who I hadn't yet grown to appreciate a little more. But even then it wasn't The Faces, it was actually Rod's solo albums weren't don't appeal that much to me today either.

My mum has never been much of a music fan, generally liking whatever is on the radio she can sing along to with the wrong words and even as a teenager didn't really buy many records. The ones she did were all big chart hits but yet I actually find more gems looking through my mum's 45s than my dad's. Theres more soul and disco stuff - Jackie Wilson, George Mcrae, Motown stuff and the track I have chosen to highlight from Freda Payne. I'll ignore the fact she also loved Donny Osmond and David Cassidy!

Download: Freda Payne - Band of Gold