One of my main Goosebump memories comes from 1964:
I was 13, had a paper route (for the Sacramento Bee), and was folding papers on the front lawn, listening to my little red transistor radio with the fold-back wire stand. The DJ announced that he was going to play a new song which had sold many thousand of copies in its first days of release. "Here they are, a new band from England, the Animals!" The opening riff of "House of the Rising Sun" jumped out of that little transistor radio speaker and it was great. That sound, along with the primal "Animals" band name, was a serious "goosebump moment" on that early Summer afternoon.
Billy F.
I TOTALLY agree with this one. I was COMPLETELY absorbed in The British Invasion when it hit ... totally captivated by all the latest British sounds ... but this didn't sound like ANYTHING I had ever heard before. Ironically, all The Animals were doing was feeding us back our American Blues ... but I'd never been exposed to that before ... the early '60's didn't sound like this when I was growing up! It was a completely new and unique sound ... and I loved it, too. Honestly, I don't know that The Animals ever really recaptured that moment ... I like quite a bit of their stuff ... but NOTHING pushed me over the top like this one did. (kk)
I can remember three records that stood out as goosebump moments:
1) "Mr. Tambourine Man" by the Byrds (also mentioned by someone else earlier) - I was completely knocked out by the sound of the 12-string electric Rickenbacker (although I didn't know at the time that's what it was) and the exquisite vocal harmonies. I would sit on my bed with my transistor radio tuning back and forth between WABC and WMCA just waiting for one of them to play the song.
2) "The Sounds Of Silence" by Simon & Garfunkel - My brother and I used to take piano lessons on Tuesday afternoons, the day WABC unveiled its new survey. At the piano teacher's house, when one of us was having his lesson, the other would go into another room and read or (in my case) listen to the radio (at a low volume). On one of those Tuesdays, I heard this incredible new record (by Simon & Who???), which I soon discovered was "The Sounds Of Silence" (oh, Garfunkel!).
3) "Sunday Will Never Be The Same" by Spanky & Our Gang - I first heard this one when it was used as background music for the group's appearance here in New York (before the single was a hit). The song got such a great reaction that the DJ (on WOR-FM) would sometimes play the entire song instead of just the snippet after he had read the spot. Of course, it was in regular rotation soon enough.
I was 13, had a paper route (for the Sacramento Bee), and was folding papers on the front lawn, listening to my little red transistor radio with the fold-back wire stand. The DJ announced that he was going to play a new song which had sold many thousand of copies in its first days of release. "Here they are, a new band from England, the Animals!" The opening riff of "House of the Rising Sun" jumped out of that little transistor radio speaker and it was great. That sound, along with the primal "Animals" band name, was a serious "goosebump moment" on that early Summer afternoon.
Billy F.
I TOTALLY agree with this one. I was COMPLETELY absorbed in The British Invasion when it hit ... totally captivated by all the latest British sounds ... but this didn't sound like ANYTHING I had ever heard before. Ironically, all The Animals were doing was feeding us back our American Blues ... but I'd never been exposed to that before ... the early '60's didn't sound like this when I was growing up! It was a completely new and unique sound ... and I loved it, too. Honestly, I don't know that The Animals ever really recaptured that moment ... I like quite a bit of their stuff ... but NOTHING pushed me over the top like this one did. (kk)
I can remember three records that stood out as goosebump moments:
1) "Mr. Tambourine Man" by the Byrds (also mentioned by someone else earlier) - I was completely knocked out by the sound of the 12-string electric Rickenbacker (although I didn't know at the time that's what it was) and the exquisite vocal harmonies. I would sit on my bed with my transistor radio tuning back and forth between WABC and WMCA just waiting for one of them to play the song.
2) "The Sounds Of Silence" by Simon & Garfunkel - My brother and I used to take piano lessons on Tuesday afternoons, the day WABC unveiled its new survey. At the piano teacher's house, when one of us was having his lesson, the other would go into another room and read or (in my case) listen to the radio (at a low volume). On one of those Tuesdays, I heard this incredible new record (by Simon & Who???), which I soon discovered was "The Sounds Of Silence" (oh, Garfunkel!).
3) "Sunday Will Never Be The Same" by Spanky & Our Gang - I first heard this one when it was used as background music for the group's appearance here in New York (before the single was a hit). The song got such a great reaction that the DJ (on WOR-FM) would sometimes play the entire song instead of just the snippet after he had read the spot. Of course, it was in regular rotation soon enough.
Randy Price
You just triggered another teenage memory of mine. The father of one of my best friends in high school was convinced that Simon and Garfunkel were Russian terrorists trying to pollute the minds of teenage America by winning them over to their side by hiding subliminal, brain-washing messages in their music ... in fact, he always referred to them as "Simon and Brezhnevkauf"! (lol) "The Sounds Of Silence" didn't grab me ... in fact, I couldn't STAND the song until I saw it used in "The Graduate" several years later ... but "Homeward Bound" won me over on first listen. And I don't know that there any many songs more powerful and majestic than "Bridge Over Trouble Water" ... to this day, that one can still raise goosebumps. (kk)
You just triggered another teenage memory of mine. The father of one of my best friends in high school was convinced that Simon and Garfunkel were Russian terrorists trying to pollute the minds of teenage America by winning them over to their side by hiding subliminal, brain-washing messages in their music ... in fact, he always referred to them as "Simon and Brezhnevkauf"! (lol) "The Sounds Of Silence" didn't grab me ... in fact, I couldn't STAND the song until I saw it used in "The Graduate" several years later ... but "Homeward Bound" won me over on first listen. And I don't know that there any many songs more powerful and majestic than "Bridge Over Trouble Water" ... to this day, that one can still raise goosebumps. (kk)
Growing up on the northwest side of Chicago, all my friends lived across and down the alley from each other. We all met up at night in someone's garage and played music. I have a vivid memory in the fall of 67 hearing How Can I Be Sure by the Rascals. I can still see the exact place I stood in the garage, the peeling paint, the brisk fall air, and I remember the exact clothes I had on. That song hit me like a brick and it is still my all-time favorite song. Great memories of a great time.
Janet
Janet
Kent,
Bar none, take it the bank, the best r and b / doo wop song of all time is the Flamingo's majestic, "I Only Have Eyes For You." First time I heard the song when I was about nine and have never grown tired of the harmony or the haunting band track. In fact, I believe "Eyes' is one of the five greatest songs of all time - any genre.
Chet Coppock
The earliest "goosebumps" moment I can recall was being at my friend Norm's house when we were in fifth or sixth grade, and he played the New Christy Minstrels album, "Ramblin'." When the record player got to "The Last Farewell" I stopped cold. Goosebumps. It was decades before I learned that Randy Sparks had written new lyrics for the ancient melody "The River Is Wide," and did an arrangement with all the close harmony we'd come to expect from NCM.
Interestingly, another, much later goosebumps moment (I've had many) happened on my first hearing of "Touch and Go" by Emerson, Lake, & Powell. As with "The Last Farewell," the song's main theme is a workover of an ancient folk melody called "Lovely Joan." Folk melodies are remembered for a reason: They give us goosebumps. That's their *job.*
-- 73 --
-- Jeff Duntemann
Des Plaines, Illinois
My goosebump moment occurred at a little record shop in Gettysburg, Pa, called the Platter Palace where I first heard "Give Me Some Lovin'" by the Jordan Brothers.
Chet Coppock
The earliest "goosebumps" moment I can recall was being at my friend Norm's house when we were in fifth or sixth grade, and he played the New Christy Minstrels album, "Ramblin'." When the record player got to "The Last Farewell" I stopped cold. Goosebumps. It was decades before I learned that Randy Sparks had written new lyrics for the ancient melody "The River Is Wide," and did an arrangement with all the close harmony we'd come to expect from NCM.
Interestingly, another, much later goosebumps moment (I've had many) happened on my first hearing of "Touch and Go" by Emerson, Lake, & Powell. As with "The Last Farewell," the song's main theme is a workover of an ancient folk melody called "Lovely Joan." Folk melodies are remembered for a reason: They give us goosebumps. That's their *job.*
-- 73 --
-- Jeff Duntemann
Des Plaines, Illinois
My goosebump moment occurred at a little record shop in Gettysburg, Pa, called the Platter Palace where I first heard "Give Me Some Lovin'" by the Jordan Brothers.
PSchenk
You know how people call into talk radio shows and say: "Long time listener - first time caller"? Well, I'm a long time reader of your excellent site, but a first time responder. I love your theme of goosebump moments and I just have to offer a few of mine:
1) Very late 50s - early 60s - Listening to the radio and hearing "The Lonely Bull," realizing that the music, which sounded upbeat and triumphant, was also inviting us, thanks to the title, to feel the doomed bull's fear and loneliness. Then, when the crowd cheered at the end of the song, it felt genuinely chilling. I felt something similar for 'Telstar,' the music of which seemed to capture the awesomeness of a satellite so far away, up in outer space.
2) Early 60's - Traveling with my family across country in a Winnebago my father had rented, standing in the yard of one of his childhood friends in Rockford, Illinois, and hearing, way down the street, a band rehearsing in their garage, playing their version of the Animal's version of "The House of the Rising Sun." I'd heard live bands before and had just started trying to form one with friends, but somehow being 1000 miles from home, and never seeing the band, just hearing them playing somewhere in an undefined location, made it seem like a universal moment, like a symbol that rock and roll was in the air everywhere.
3) Early-mid 60's - Having started playing drums, modeling myself on Ringo Starr and Dave Clark, I was completely astonished when a friend played me the Who's 'Can't Explain' and the even wilder back side "Bald-Headed Woman." It was a sudden realization, thanks to Keith Moon, that drumming could be a lot more explosive than Ringo or Dave had shown me and that rock and roll could feel more rebellious, more out of control and more exciting than I'd ever realized. I must have played 'Bald-Headed Woman' twenty times that afternoon. I wouldn't have been able articulate this back then, the song seemed to be promising me that rock and roll was going to keep growing and changing, and that it had a long way to go. I also didn't realize until years later that in part I was responding to the emotional power of the blues, as the song had a basic blues structure and feel, to which the Who were adding their creative embellishments; I just thought it was so new and exciting, as rock and roll was all through those years of my life.
Thanks for a great site - keep it up!
Tom Reid
Melrose, MA
You know how people call into talk radio shows and say: "Long time listener - first time caller"? Well, I'm a long time reader of your excellent site, but a first time responder. I love your theme of goosebump moments and I just have to offer a few of mine:
1) Very late 50s - early 60s - Listening to the radio and hearing "The Lonely Bull," realizing that the music, which sounded upbeat and triumphant, was also inviting us, thanks to the title, to feel the doomed bull's fear and loneliness. Then, when the crowd cheered at the end of the song, it felt genuinely chilling. I felt something similar for 'Telstar,' the music of which seemed to capture the awesomeness of a satellite so far away, up in outer space.
2) Early 60's - Traveling with my family across country in a Winnebago my father had rented, standing in the yard of one of his childhood friends in Rockford, Illinois, and hearing, way down the street, a band rehearsing in their garage, playing their version of the Animal's version of "The House of the Rising Sun." I'd heard live bands before and had just started trying to form one with friends, but somehow being 1000 miles from home, and never seeing the band, just hearing them playing somewhere in an undefined location, made it seem like a universal moment, like a symbol that rock and roll was in the air everywhere.
3) Early-mid 60's - Having started playing drums, modeling myself on Ringo Starr and Dave Clark, I was completely astonished when a friend played me the Who's 'Can't Explain' and the even wilder back side "Bald-Headed Woman." It was a sudden realization, thanks to Keith Moon, that drumming could be a lot more explosive than Ringo or Dave had shown me and that rock and roll could feel more rebellious, more out of control and more exciting than I'd ever realized. I must have played 'Bald-Headed Woman' twenty times that afternoon. I wouldn't have been able articulate this back then, the song seemed to be promising me that rock and roll was going to keep growing and changing, and that it had a long way to go. I also didn't realize until years later that in part I was responding to the emotional power of the blues, as the song had a basic blues structure and feel, to which the Who were adding their creative embellishments; I just thought it was so new and exciting, as rock and roll was all through those years of my life.
Thanks for a great site - keep it up!
Tom Reid
Melrose, MA
