What was the first single you purchased

@bluebird243 me too!

Bend Me, Shape Me - Amen Corner

Baby Love by the Supremes.

These songs tske us right back to the time and the place. How innocent we were then.

My first record was Sway by Dean Martin, but I didn't buy it. When I was a small boy I would stay with my grandmother during school holidays, granny had a fish & chip shop, the shop next door was a cafe, very popular with drivers and tradespeople and more than a few business managers. The proprietor was called George, Uncle George to me.

George had a jukebox, when a record was slipping down in the charts, George replaced it with a new release, the old ones were put back in their dust sleeves, passed onto Granny, who gave then to me.

My family wasn't well off enough to afford a record player but I had great pleasure just taking the records out of their dust sleeves and admiring them. Eventually I earned enough, together with saved pocket money, to buy a second hand Dansette single play.

Uncle George must have got wind of my delight, probably through my grandmother. He invited me behind the counter and presented me with a couple of boxes of records. They were a mix of 1930's African/American music, Big Bands and the early fifties Doo-Wap. What a treasure trove.

Those records inspired me to research the era from whence they came, I have since acquired hundreds more, it's probably why I never got hooked on the bands of the 60's even though I was 14 in 1960, a time of great musical upheaval.

George passed away in 1967, my grandmother wrote to tell me, sadly it was too late to attend his funeral. But I still made the journey to pay my respects. My grandmother told me that George had left me something. I was curious, granny took me into the yard at the back of her shop.

Oh George, you beauty. I love, love,love it.

gillybob

Mine was "sugar sugar" by The Archies. I remember it had an orange middle . Bought from Woolies too.

That was my first record too and also bought from Woolies. I wonder if we’re the same age

Jaffacake2

Albatross Fleetwood Mac. Very young hippie days listening to this wearing long skirt and cheesecloth top ,what style !!

Albatross reminds me of my first wedding. I was young and pretty much left my Mum to arrange it all. I don’t think Bridezillas had been invented then! I wanted a disco but she insisted on booking a proper band that had been recommended. They turned up as we were finishing the meal and I was horrified when I saw these six ‘old’ men arrive in dinner suits. Hoe wrong I was! They were fabulous. Proper musicians who could turn their hand to anything from pop to classical. They played Albatross and if you closed your eyes you could imagine it was actually Fleetwood Mac on the stage.

Albatross Fleetwood Mac. Very young hippie days listening to this wearing long skirt and cheesecloth top ,what style !!

My first record was Wheel of Fortune by Kay Starr. I bought this whilst we were visiting my granny in Glasgow in the late 1950s. I’m now going to see if I can find it on YouTube.

When I was revising for my O Levels I was always listening to the radio.I could remember every word of every record I heard, but had great difficulty answering the exam questions ?

Twiglet what a brilliant collection to have with all those memories.
I too loved Terry. Early 70s was good but I do think the sixties music was very special and I am glad I was a teenager in that era.
The first single I bought was Pentecost Hotel by Nirvana. Not very well known but I loved it. Also bought Suspicious Minds, Walk Away Renee among others. I had to play them initially at my married sister's house as we didn't have a record player. We used to play the B side too.
Those indeed were the days.

The first record I bought was Hold Me by PJ Proby. That was before he started ripping his pants?
We had listening booths too at our local record shop. A great place to meet boys on a Saturday?

My first LP was "With the Beatles". I was at home with Mumps and drove my parents mad by playing it on repeat on my little Dansette record player.

Mt first purchase was not a single but an EP - Wait for Me by Malcolm Vaughan. My great aunt had a 78 disc of it and I liked it so much. I then bought Telstar by the Tremeloes, so that was 1962. I was 10.

Oh this thread is making me so nostalgic. ?

You Don’t Know by Helen Shapiro. I wanted to be her when I was ten.

Mine was Come On by the Rolling Stones my dad used to ask me what they where singing as he couldn't understand a word of it.
Then the first LP was With The Beatles and the collection started from there.

Eddie Cochran was a Pointless answer last week - I got it but the contestants didn't.

Poor Eddie.
He'd be in his 80s now.

I used to order the new Beatles singles before I'd heard them. My sister is 3 years older than me and bought records by Elvis, Ricky Nelson, Eddie Cochrane etc. I didn't like any of them at the time but I love all those tunes now.

Merlot that’s hilarious!

Return To Sender by Elvis

Wow this is a great thread! Young Girl, I've drawn a very artistic sort of star over the middle... I don't think they'd play it on radio now. Poetry in Motion was pinched from a boyfriend's sister's abandoned collection, with some Duane Eddy, lots of Elvis singles and LPs. My father bought me Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep, I can't think what I did to deserve it.

The first record I actually bought myself was I Want To Hold Your Hand, with my Christmas money from my grandparents, my mother waited while I paid for it myself. December 1963. I already had She Loves You, which was a present earlier in the year.

Terry, Leader of the Pack and Come Outside were staples on the biker cafe jukebox when I was mid-teens. I have those too, from the second hand box at the record store down the road from the cafe, where my first boyfriend bought me Ride A White Swan! My brother gave me his copy of Deborah, when T.Rex were still Tyrannosaurus Rex.

I still have all these singles and my vinyl albums, and have rescued so many that various friends or their siblings were throwing out. And I do play them occasionally, I love knowing exactly where they will skip over a scratch! When I'm gone I know my kids will bin them, I'll suggest they offer them to a collector first but the doodles and inscriptions from (or about) boyfriends or crushes, not to mention the scratches, are a huge part of the memories and nobody else will want those.

I Want To Hold Your Hand was the first single I bought myself, allowed into the record shop while my mother was outside, spending my Christmas money from my grandparents. December 1963. I was seven years old. I already had She Loves You, but that was a present earlier in the year. I still have them both, along with all the other Beatles singles.

My much older sister left all her records when she moved out, Cliff Richard and the Shadows, The Everly Brothers, Adam Faith, Connie Francis, I still have them too. It's wonderful to listen to vinyl records and know exactly where they will skip over a scratch!

janeainsworth

Mine was FBI by the Shadows. I thought Hank was so cool ? I must have been 12 at the time.
I think it was 6/3d from Neild & Hardy in Stockport.
You could go into a little booth and listen to the record before you made your purchase.

The booths in our local music shop were made of plywood.

Oh, those little booths, janea. DH tells a story of when we were staying with my aunt and uncle who owned a pub in Salisbury and he offered to take their boxer dog for a walk.

He thought he'd surprise me with the latest Rolling Stones release so took the dog into the shop with him and as he listened to the record in the booth he dropped the lead because the dog had settled down and was completely 'chilled'

When he went to pay for the record he was asked not to bring 'that dog' in again. Apparently, Bruce had a bit of a reputation for pinning people he didn't like against a wall.