Dad Rocks - The Album- : What Does Your Father Rock Out to?

My dad's dead, but when he was alive he liked Otis Redding, Bill Monroe, Paul Simon's Graceland, Joe Cocker, and oldies radio, particularly doo-wop stuff like "Who Wrote The Book Of Love" and his absolute favorite song ever, "The Ten Commandments Of Love."

Currently his favorites seem to be Gretchen Wilson and Big & Rich.

N2U -- "Baby Mama Love"

xp

Haha, it's what my Mom says when in fact she means "get away from that awful racket."

My Dad:
Steely Dan
Fourplay
Lee Ritenour, Dave Grusin (sp?)
Some Christian "praise" music

BLEH!

However, there was a period in the early nineties where he was completely smitten with Natalie Cole's Unforgettable. He was constantly buying copies of that album to give to friends, he thought it was so good. When "Unforgettable" won the Grammy for Best Song of the Year, we got into one of our worst arguments. He got really pissed when I suggested then that Dark Side of the Moon should've been Best Album of 1990 (or whenever), and Casablanca should've beat Dancing With Wolves for Best Picture.

Anyway. That arguement blew over. However, a few years ago, I asked why he always got my sister and me gift cards for BestBuy instead of picking out albums for us. His answer was because he didn't know what we liked. I suggested that he could buy something that he liked, something that he'd like to pass along to us.

He got this familiar misty glint in his eye, and I QUICKLY CHANGED THE SUBJECT.

He doesn't really listen to much music anymore because he's losing his hearing a little (job hazard, he's a pilot) but on his computer, he has: Britney Spears (!), ABBA, lots of Beethoven, Michael Jackson, Def Leppard and Pink Floyd. And he really, really, really, really loves Bjork. And the other day, I caught him watching and ENJOYING the LCD Soundsystem performance on Letterman.

I asked him how he keeps up with stuff and why he bothers and he said, "Well, other than the internet, there's not much to do in hotel rooms without your Mum."

!!!!!

we used to have some top fights about music. then we finally found common ground in "the blue moods of spain", which he came to via the charlie haden cover of "spiritual" (which is actually better than the original) and i came to because someone mentioned them in the same breath as low in the melody maker circa 1997.

!

I must know more.

Roz, your dad has curious priorities. ;-)

My father ran the scholar Coffeehouse in MPLS initially, which leads us to him recording Leo Kottke's first album (OOP) and tons of live performances (including his audition tape), and a bunch of Koerner, Ray, and Glover, some John Fahey, and never seen again oddities like Mozen, The New King David Jug Band, Dan Glass, and other fantastic missing performers. Also, he started booking the U of M summer blues festival which brings us Big Mama Thornton, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Howling Wolf, Mance Lipscomb, Danny Cox, Eubie Blake, George "Harmonica" Smith, and countless more. Then, as if this were not enough, he took to the road and toured as front of house sound for the next 30 years...Pat Metheny, Larry Coryell, the list goes on and on.

He also recorded every last bit of it on reel to reel and has stored it for the intervening years. We've barely started through the piles yet. By the way, 750 reels may be a vast understatement, as we keep finding boxes around the house with unmarked tapes in them.

I'm forgetting many acts here, but the stuff is direct from soundboard, and sounds fantastic. I probably should be doing this in a real thread, but for now, it's our little secret.

Bands my father loved but won't like to admit to his children that he likes/d (probably for reasons related to imitating him as a teen)

The Who
T. Rex
The Rolling Stones

I decided to buy my dad a couple of CD's for his birthday this year, since it occurred to me that he didn't have any of his own, just Mum's, and they have pretty different tastes. Dad had to get Mum to show him how to use the cd player, and then a month or so later made doubly sure to remind Mum to pack his CDs when they were going on vacation. I wasn't sure how he'd take to the cds, so it's nice to see he's into it. FWIW, I bought him a copy of Johnny Horton Live At The Louisiana Hayride, and a copy of his Greatest Hits [which is the album he nearly wore out].

Tell me about it.

As for "rocking out" - he didn't like rock, but had a curious fondness for The Sweet's "Ballroom Blitz".

As far as recent stuff is concerned, it's pretty pedestrian. He tolerates or likes a lot of what I like or have liked in the past, but he wouldn't ever listen to it off his own bat.

Stones
Eddie Cochran
Zeppelin
Rod Stewart
Suzy Quatro (!)
Buddy Holly
Gene Vincent
Little Richard
Fleetwood Mac
Heart
Bob Segar (ultimate Dad Rock me thinks)
Hendrix
Bonnie Raitt
Clapton

yr dad's list is better than most of the stuff we talk about on ilm.

Stax, Motown, any pre-Summer of Love Rock n' Roll. And I think he really like that Mungo Jerry song.

Sudanese folk music
Ethio-jazz
Faith Hill

is sudanese folk music cool? what's it like?

here's the mix cd i just made for my dad for his birthday. he likes rock/blues/country. So:

Rainy Day Blues 5:33 Willie Nelson
Thunder On The Mountain 5:55 Bob Dylan
Saving Grace 3:47 Tom Petty
Spring Rain 3:10 The Go-Betweens
Ooh Las Vegas 3:45 Gram Parsons
The Beehive State 2:08 Harry Nilsson
Tennessee Stud 2:54 Johnny Cash
Killing Floor 2:50 Howlin' Wolf
Your Cheatin' Heart 3:03 Jerry Lee Lewis
Macbeth 3:06 John Cale
Charley's Girl 2:39 Lou Reed
Frankie 3:23 Mississippi John Hurt
Requiem For Mississippi John Hurt 4:19 John Fahey
Post-War 4:55 M. Ward
Hey Babe 3:37 Neil Young
Walken 4:29 Wilco Sky Blue Sky
Tear Stained Letter (Live) 4:42 Richard Thompson

my dad, after hearing the AM radio DJ announce that what we had just heard was "Great Balls of Fire":

"so, is this Jerry Lee Lewis the hot new rock combo?"

this was in 1979!

referring to bands as "combos" = classic 4-ever!

xpost

According to me, circa 1992, "extremely boring." I dunno, to my grew-up-here ears it doesn't sound too radically different from trad Ethiopian music (small-group, stringed-instrument, pentatonic*), which I assume is why my dad wound up with lots of LPs of it from back when trad Ethiopian stuff wasn't available here. I don't think he's had that stuff out in a while, though -- more often Mulatu Astatke style jazz stuff.

(* That pentatonic scale would actually explain why he liked A Flock of Seagulls' "Wishing" enough to buy the LP, which is a lot of why I wound up loving new wave.)

I should specify SOUTHERN Sudanese folk music, obviously the northern stuff is from a different more-Arabic tradition.

My dad's mix would consist mostly of Mozart, Hindemith and Cantorial music.

AC/DC (either his favorite or just makes it seem that way since he knows I hate 'em), CCR, NAZARETH HAIR OF THE DOG and most recently Appetite for Destruction.

Creedence Clearwater Revival
Roy Orbison
Buck Owens, George Jones, David Allan Coe, etc.
early Beatles & Stones
Lynyrd Skynyrd
The Police
Steely Dan
Fleetwood Mac
Bob Dylan
Johnny Cash
Frank Sinatra
C.W. McCall
ZZ Top
Dire Straits
Sheryl Crow
Boz Skaggs
James McMurtry
George Carlin and Rodney Dangerfield comedy albums

He freaked out when he heard Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy," but I taped the album for him and he didn't like it. (neither do I, really)
Oh, and he hates the fuckin' Eagles, man and will quote that Lebowski line every time they're brought up. He used to go on and on about how much he hated Dave Matthews but he since heard some duet with the Stones on the radio and now thinks he's "not so bad."
He caught Maroon 5 on American Idol and said, "That's the worst fucking singer I've ever heard."

rockin' blooz and Paul Desmond

otis redding
wilson pickett
lou rawls
frank sinatra
madeleine peyroux
diana krall (i know! i know... i'm trying...)
bb king
buddy guy
paul butterfield
rolling stones
cream

oh yeah, and steely dan and boz skaggs. i think your dad and my dad would get along, marmot.

When I read the first sentence or so of Firstworldman's answer above, I thought that it was something I had written and forgotten about. My dad frequents the jazz douchebags threads and runs http://www.jazzoetry.net/muabo/, a jazzish message board. And yeah, he got me into Can.
My divergence with him is that I really like pop and rock, and he only kinda does, and is mostly into novelty or Zappa-esque stuff.

No Moody Blues, no credibility. Bit of a generation gap with that comp too...I can imagine my father using the latter as a coaster.

xx-post
yeah he likes Otis Redding and Lou Rawls, too.

Rock/pop highlights of my dad's record collection:

Every Beatles album, plus a few.
Every Beach Boys album up through Beach Boys Party, then Smiley Smile and 20/20, leaving me to not discover Pet Sounds until my mid-20s.
Much early Bob Dylan, but not Highway 61 or Bringing It...
Cream
The Blues Project
The Incredible String Band
American Beauty, Workingman's Dead, and Skullfuck
The Coasters
A lot of folk: Simon & Garfunkle, the Limelighters, the Weavers but also some Folkways compilations and logging camp folk records
A number of greatest hits albums of Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, etc. purchased in the 1980s.

These days I think it's mostly NPR and books-on-tape.

Oh, and last week we went on a road trip on which he exhorted me to bring along the Flying Burrito Brothers, which we never had around the house, but he had heard through a college room mate.

Two thumbs up, dad.

Yup, that was my dad, lots of early Beach Boys (forgot to list that) but no Pet Sounds or anything after, no Beatles after Rubber Soul, not much Stones after...I dunno, Aftermath or Between the Buttons maybe, but he did have a cassette of Let It Bleed and I think my mom bought Sticky Fingers (w/zipper) at a flea market or something. He also had some later stuff like Some Girls and Tattoo You. I had to buy the missing stuff on my own, so no Sgt. Peppers until I was around 12, no Pet Sounds until 14 or 15, no Exile or Beggar's until some time after that.

Once I played my dad Money Jungle though, and he said something like "Wow, this has all the best elements of modern music!"

my dad, after hearing the AM radio DJ announce that what we had just heard was "Great Balls of Fire":

"so, is this Jerry Lee Lewis the hot new rock combo?"

this was in 1979!

Hahaha! Oh my god! That kills me. Especially since that was a song my own dad was totally into and introduced ME to!

Beatles
Beach Boys
Cream
Santana
Doors
Pink Floyd
Stones
CCR
Hendrix
(pretty much standard rock stuff for a hippie who grew up in Mexico City)
Also
Stevie Wonder
Marvin Gaye
Otis Redding
Pedro Infante
Vicente Fernandez
Tons of Fania Stuff
Mariachi/Cumbia Records (too many to list)

last three non-smooth jazz albums I've seen my dad purchase:

1. that Big & Rich album
2. that Gretchen Wilson album
3. KT Tunstall because he thought that "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" song was great, I think he hated the album though

CDs my dad borrowed from me this morning:

Four Tet - Rounds
Tortoise - TNT
Yo La Tengo - I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One
XTC - English Settlement

other recent stuff he likes: the Decemberists (especially the new album, ugh/wtf), Wilco, the Arcade Fire, Andrew Bird. I am making him sound more boring and hipster-y than he really is, though. he also listens to a lot of bluegrass and folk and stuff. I gave him a Yat-Kha album recently, and he really dug it. the first time he heard Band of Horses I think he actually said "ugh, is this some kind of joke?"

I really dug a lot of what my dad liked when I was a kid - Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Steve Goodman, David Allen Coe, Jerry Jeff Walker, Bonnie Koloc, Joni Mitchell ... but then the Eagles records started appearing - then Jimmy Buffet and then the bad show tunes and this in the last few years morphed into all Cowboy Mouth, all the time ... listening to tunes with my Dad now is The Suck.

haha which show tunes?

both my parents love show tunes. i grew up on rodgers and hammerstein and stephen sondheim, and even - gasp - some andrew lloyd webber. i still know all the songs from carousel.

LOL DAD IZ GAY [ / joek ]

you should see him bust out "memories" from cats after a few too many gin&tonics...

Well, my dad (age early 60s) likes all the usual suspects; but the REAL story is his own dad, my late grand-dad of course, whose tolerance towards the harder sounds kept escalating as he got older. In the early '70s, I recall, he had records by Bread, Three Dog Night, Jim Croce, that sort of soft-rock thing. But by the time he turned 80, shortly before his death, it was all CCR, Dire Straits, ZZ Top and AC/DC!

My dad doesn't remember any of those. He'd rather rock out to some blues from the 50s.

Pre-Beatles rock and roll, mostly ballads (Elvis, Platters, Orbison) and a handful of songs he likes to dance to (Elvis' "Blue Suede Shoes")

French-language easy listening (Sweet People, Compagnie Creole, Nana Mouskouri)

Some pop-country (Kenny Rogers, John Denver, Don Gibson - I think)

Cheesily-packaged albums of pseudo-ethnic instrumentals from Peru and Greece and whatnot.

Contemporary big-voice MOR (Celine Dion, Elton John)

Also, he got seriously into Iris Dement after hearing her music coming from my bedroom. And in recent years he has seemed genuinely interested in Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, who seem to me like they'd be vocally way out of his range.

He also once had a very brief disco phase in which he bought 45s by Donna Summer and Bionic Boogie.

(Joe Dassin also needs to be in there somewhere)

my dad's birthday is tomorrow (well, technically today) which inspires me to post. also i'm a little drunked.

anyhow, he seemed to have a weakness for bands named after cities...i remember him enjoying the kansas, the chicago. maybe the boston, as well. and most definitely, early-ish beach boys, like "little deuce coupe", "fun, fun, fun", "barbara ann"...

and i have a vivid memory of him rocking out to "rubber band man" by the spinners. (like, getting really excited and turning it up when it came on the radio)

also, this is off-topic, but my mom used the word "cool" today, and i think it was the first time that i've ever heard her use it in the colloquial sense. it kind of threw me for a loop. note: both my parents are in their late 60's.

today's my dad's 65th birthday, should i buy him a Creedence box set?

yes! my dad loved creedence

it always made him happy when the Creedence commercial came on TV. i think that's the one band that he likes that my parents don't own any records by.

The Eagles
Ozzy / Sabbath
Fleetwood Mac
Tears For Fears
Glenn Miller Orchestra
Lots of disco from the 70s and 80s
Scatman John, unfortunately, for some reason

my dad likes sports radio 66, the fan, WFAN.

These days he's all about the Grateful Dead ... I gave him a copy of the New Riders of the Purple Sage debut for his birthday a couple of weeks ago, he liked that.

Marty Robbins
Slim Whitman
Osborne Brothers
Buck Owens

These are probably Dad's favorites.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/magazine/the-secret-life-of-a-rock-dad.html?src=recg

My dad went to Latitude the other year and came back raving about Mika's set. *suppresses shudder*

That's bad?

my dad is old enough that rock music is just a bit after "his time"