Early days in childhood

Although neither of my parents were musicians, my enthusiasm for music came about from their own interest in music, via the records that they played whilst I was a young child.
My mother's musical tastes were more varied than that of my father, who was a little more specific in his tastes, but at the same time more in-depth in those particular tastes, and their mutual record collection reflected these qualities.
Growing up in the 1960s, my mother listened to a lot of contemporary pop music, which ran more towards the middle of the road side, so there were the Beatles early to middle period albums, and the likes of Simon & Garfunkel and other slightly more folky stuff like The Seekers and The Spinners, amongst others.
But my passion for classical music also definitely came from my mother. Her record collection consisted mainly of popular classics, in the form of many compilation albums, along with some albums of specific works by particular composers, which I will mention in more detail later.
For my father's part, His interest was mainly pop music, but he had a special passion for 1950s Rock 'n' Roll, which encompassed a great love of Elvis Presley's early records, along with that of many other Rock and Rollers of his youth, from Bill Haley and the Comets, to Chuck Berry, to Little Richard and many more.
His particular fondness throughout the early 60's for the music of Cliff Richard and the Shadows, and especially the Shadows in their own right as an instrumental guitar group, was certainly a formative influence in my own embryonic musical passions, equal to that of my mother's classical records, which both marked out for me very early on, a distinct leaning, (although by no means exclusively) towards non-vocal music.

But amongst all this early love of my parents' respective records, there was something far more deep and meaningful......

Yes folks, this was where it was at when I was 7. Although it's safe to say that it didn't make a lasting impression much after my mother bought it for me. But there we are. The above record was the first one that was officially 'mine'.
So yes, amongst all that authentic Rock 'n' Roll, and classical music, there was a fair amount kitsch stuff too.
Many of my generation will remember the 'Top of the Pops' series of albums with glamour girls on the front, and other similar series like the 'Hot Hits' albums. Here are two examples that I remember from my parents record collection that used to get played regularly:

Yes, as a child I did enjoy such albums as these too, with their cover versions of contemporary hits, including such personal favourites of the day, like: 'Theme from 'Shaft' and 'Ernie the Fastest Milkman in the West'. Oh yes, I remember them well.
These albums went hand in hand with my now nostalgic interest in the tv themes of the time, which were often released as singles back then, and more often than not, appeared on such albums as the above. Both tv and film themes were often released on albums covered by the likes of Cy Pane or Jack Parnell and his Orchestra, amongst others. This was another facet of my growing interest in incidental music. Partly fuelled  via my favourite childhood tv programmes such as 'Dr Who' and 'Star Trek', which gave way to a keen interest in tv and film themes as a whole.

The most successful and well known of these was undoubtedly Geoff Love and his Orchestra, who made several albums of film and tv themes which my parents had in their record collection. I particularly remember these four examples; Especially the Western and War Movie albums, the latter of which in particular had some dramatic childhood favourites such as 'Where Eagles Dare'.

And further on the subject of tv themes, In 1973, I bought my first record of my own in the form of the BBC single of the Dr Who theme music. Admittedly, this was largely because it was my favourite tv programme when I was a boy, but the electronic wonder of it did not escape me, and in that sense it was certainly an influence on some the music I would be making on home recording equipment about 15 years down the line.

So these are examples of some of the lighter side of my childhood musical influences. Next I'll talk about some of the more long lasting impressions made by the aforementioned classical music which comes from my mother, and the rock 'n' roll music coming from my father, along with my earliest guitar hero: Hank Marvin.