Led Zeppelin

I just finished watching a show on VH1 on the top 100 hard rock artists and of course Led Zeppelin was the top and considered the grandfather of all other hard rock, metal and alternative to come after it. You're probably wondering why I would even stop on a program like that, but there are quite a few bands on their list that I either listened to as a teenager (Van Halen, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest) or listen to now (Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, AC/DC). My musical taste runs the gambit from HipHop to Classical composers. I like a little of just about everything out there and then some more of certain genres.

Music was an intricate part of growing up in our household. My parents introduced me and my sister to music at an early age. I remember listening to Sonic Seasonings by Wendy Carlos (aka Walter Carlos), when I was a toddler at bedtime. We lived in a commune in So Cal at the time and everyone in the house sang or played an instrument. Music surrounded us, and many of my earliest memories can be triggered by just hearing a song from those times.

As I got older, music continued to be an important part of our lives. We listened to music more often than we watched TV. My dad worked for a while as a board operator for a college radio station in Oregon. He worked during their Classical music broadcast and I was exposed to another genre through that. American Folk, Blues, Rock, Classical, Country, you name it, we listened to it at our house. We all sang to music, cleaned to music, and studied to music. Whenever we would be turned on to something new in the music scene, my sister and I would share it with our parents and get their view on it. We had them dancing and enjoying bands that they had never heard of and watched them knowingly smile when we would "discover" something from a band that had been around for ages.

I think that I am able to appreciate the broad range of music out there today because of the early influence music had in my life, and the fact that my parents were open to so many types of music. I don't think I ever heard them yell "Turn that crap down" like so many of my friends experienced. I am so thankful for that.