When I was a tiny tot, (3-5 years old), my dad had his radio on in the garage while working on his International Harvester Scout. Usually it was on either KHJ or KRLA, even if he didn't like some of the music. He wasn't a fan of what he (and later my mother) called acid rock and he hated the R&B screamers (Wilson Pickett, James Brown).
In the late 1960s, he became a big country fan, first with KBBQ and later, before we moved to Phoenix in 1972, KLAC (he had moved himself to Phoenix in 1971 and there were always visits and return visits where he discovered that he could listen to KLAC for a lot longer than he could listen to KBBQ on the drive from L.A. to Phoenix.) After moving to Phoenix, his favorite radio station became KJJJ (the station on 910 kHZ that is now known as KGME). When country began hardening in the mid- and late 1980s, he dropped listening to radio altogether and instead listened to early R&R plus many of the early 1950s crooners.
What I am about to say next regarding my dad's musical tastes may surprise some of you. And I am going to make this even more shocking by pointing out that my dad really didn't like black people. He hated Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.--he called him a Communist sympathizer. He was also a fan of Joe McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover. During his declining years, his favorite politician was Senator Jesse Helms.
What is surprising about all of that is that I taped some of the early 1950s R&B music off "The Evolution of Rock," and we played it in this van he owned as we drove from Phoenix to Los Angeles one year to drop me off at Loyola Marymount University. You know what? He remembered and liked a lot of the songs. "60-Minute Man," by The Dominos, "Work with Me Annie," by Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, "Honey Love," by The Drifters, and "I got a Woman," by Ray Charles were some of his favorites. What he told me was that he was turned on to this music while serving in the Korean War. And while he didn't necessarily like the African-american and white fellow soldiers who were playing it, he did come to appreciate that music.
There was a 7-year difference between my father and mother (he was born in 1933 while she was born in 1940) and it showed up in their musical tastes. My mom loved pop and rock of the late 1950s, especially white acts like Ricky Nelson, Buddy Holly, and most especially, Elvis Presley. (In fact, I once asked my mother, at the urging of a disc jockey who I was calling to request an Elvis recording, what the greatest effect Elvis had on her and her reply was "He taught me how to be a proper teenybopper.")
Like my dad, my mom didn't like "acid" rock or soul screamers, but she wasn't really a big fan of easy listening or classical music, either. She once told me that for her, good music had to have a beat. The year before her 2022 death, my mom remarked to me that she thought that the 1970s was probably the greatest musical decade ever.
I never argued with my parents about what was on the car radio. While I wasn't a big fan of country at the time, I found myself enjoying the late 1950s R&R that my mom liked along with much of the 1960s psychedelia and R&B that neither parent was very fond of. The biggest arguments I had with both parents were about my tendency to always be changing stations on my portable radio, especially during car trips. I wanted to find out what radio stations I could hear where and my parents just wanted me to pick one station and stick with it. Fortunately, first stereo headphones, and later Walkman-style receivers, solved that problem in my favor.
As for me, well, my musical tastes include most of the music my parents liked (I grew to like a lot of 1970s countrypolitan) plus Psychedelia soul, AOR, and some things from the 1980s through the early 2000s that included some of what Dr. Dre and friends were doing with west Coast rap. That broad interest is very much reflected in the 45s, albums, and CDs I have purchased over the years.
