Ohhhh my, that question brought back soooo many memories!
I was in Africa at the time, in a small country nobody knows nothing about.
We only had 1 boat every 2weeks for food & stuff and a passenger plane on Sundays that brought the mail & small items. So it was VERY HARD and very expensive to get any superfluous items like LPs.
I had bugged & begged my Mom for a Beatles album since I heard Obladi Oblada on the radio - we had radio only 2hrs ea. night, Sundays/Saturdays we got a whopping 4hrs!!!
Mostly propaganda & censored stuff - so how Obladi managed to slip through, I don't know, so it was even more precious for the young crowd.
My parents sometimes tried to listened to BBC News in secret, since it was forbidden - if caught, ppl could end up in an interrogation room! Happened to our next door neighbour who mysteriously disappeared for a few months!, came back a shadow of himself... nobody even dared talk to him afterwards, too afraid to be associated with. Just sad!!
All this to say that even to know *who* the Beatles were, was a great feat! You can imagine to convince my parents to buy that degenerate music coming out of England was really NOT easy!!
My Dad had an Akai tape monster for 8" & 10" tapes. A huge machine 2feet x 3feet high x 1feet deep.
Does anybody remember those??
My Mom was a photographer, imported all their material from Germany(Hi Babs), so they must've included it in one of the orders for the studio.
We played music on that thing, bought a turntable only later. What I can not remember is *where* Dad got those big tapes from. They couldn't be store bought w music already on them, so ... ??? He bought them blank and transfered music to them how??
Toooo long ago, memory failing fast!! *sigh*
I don't know how my Mom did it, but she found a way and I finally got that Beatles album PLUS the My Fair Lady soundtrack album at the same time - I think Mom wanted to balance out the effects of that crazy music w something more sober - needless to say, I hardly listened to the soundtrack one!, unless *I had to*... =°z°=
Strangely enough, Obladi was part of the dbl White Album, but I don't think mine was a dbl album, must have been a cheaper edition they sent to us *the savages* in Africa...
I still had all those precious albums I manage to get my hands on, when we moved to Europe ~'71. I still had them when, a few years later, I moved to Canada. Because of the weight, I had to choose which ones to bring w me, so I only brought ~20 and a few 45s. Gee, I still remember vividly their awful weight and the hassle I had on the plane, bc I didn't want them warped/scratched.
And then, 2y later disaster struck again and I lost EVERYTHING in a fire - photos, discs, letters, souvenirs and most of the beautifully embroidered sheets, table, towel sets, etc, my Mom had made for me for over 10 years...
Luckily when I met Hubby, he had an already large LP collection!! :>)
We kept adding to it, even after CDs came to be, we couldn't afford them at those $40., $30. prices.
I'll ask him later tonite if he remembers the first ones he bought, I'll post it then!!
Well, not so sure trips down memory lane are good for me. Misty eyes 'round here!!
