What are your REAL musical influences

[Andy Volk]

I've participated in many threads and polls over the years asking "which musicians or music influenced you the most?" I've often listed a core group of my favorite lap and pedal steelers, jazz guitarists, tasteful rock players, etc. Dissolve to the past .....

When I was around ten, my friend Eddie had two things (Well, three things if you count his older sister) I coveted: a fantastic comic book collection and a great collection of 45s - all melodic pop and soul music . Also, elegant, melodic soul music was all over Philly radio when I was growing up. I'm only now realizing how just much these early records influenced me musically and informed my taste in later music styles.

Songs like these ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqqE3VU1icc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_BjMRpjEZI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cb8ZUpAr94

[Andre Dardeau]

I was just asked the bands that most influenced me and my answer was Booker T and the MGs and the band from the live Waylon record from the seventies

[Jerry Overstreet]

If you're talking musical influences v. steel guitar influences I'd have to list by eras starting basically as a kid in the 50s. That would be too massive a list for this thread. I'll just say that all that changed from era to era which included nearly every style of music on the planet.

[Bud Angelotti]

No steel here but I think this is the most beautiful piece of music ever created by man.
A big sound, call and response, it's all there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mou5WYwGWlg
Enjoy!

[Brett Day]

Although I really love country music-country music is where a lot of my heroes are, I love musical styles from the '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s and '90s. When I was a kid, I heard all kinds of music, ranging from everything to country music, 80s pop/rock, hymns sung in church, and there were so many songs and artists I heard. I started loving country music in the mid eighties, I guess because I wasn't the kid who wanted to watch kids' shows on TV-I wanted to watch country music videos every afternoon. In the '90s, I realized I loved country music more and heard it a lot-I was listening to artists like Vince Gill, Patty Loveless, Lorrie Morgan, George Strait, Alan Jackson, Suzy Bogguss, John Michael Montgomery,Lonestar, Blackhawk, Diamond Rio, Shenandoah, Little Texas, Ricochet, Brooks & Dunn and others. Along the way, I heard other styles of music, like rhythm and blues-I've got a new respect for singer Toni Braxton because on her Pulse record in 2010, she features Paul Franklin playing steel on a song called "If I Have To Wait". After I started playing steel, I'd heard a lot more about Hank Williams, Ray Price, Merle Haggard, Ernest Tubb, Charley Pride, George Jones(the first George Jones song I heard as a kid was "Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes", and the first Merle Haggard song I remember hearing was "Natural High". In the mid eighties, while watching a video of Ricky Skaggs singing "Don't Get Above Your Raisin'", I found out about my favorite instrument, the steel guitar-the instrument I started loving at the age of eight and started playing ten years later in 1999.

[Bob Shilling]

I first heard this when I was a 13 year old trumpet player. It bowled me over. It was 1954 and R&R was just getting started, but I thought this was what music was all about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUbgwADLFPM

Sing Sing Sing, Benny Goodman, Carnegie Hall, 1938

[Bill Ladd]

Django Reinhardt

[Andy Volk]

Such an influence on so many!

[Mike Neer]

Sly and the Family Stone
Chuck Berry

They were the foundation. Of course I listened to a lot of radio, too. Once I discovered what it really took to achieve excellence as a musician, the influences came from every direction. But my most profound influence (or musical guide) has been Ry Cooder, who has transcended music and told stories that reflect the deepest human experiences, such as on Chavez Ravine. And his journeys through the music of many continents and cultures have brought the world closer together for those willing to listen. He is my real hero.

[Andy Volk]

Ry is a national treasure and a profound scholar of musical cultures and he has had the taste to find the sonic apex of these musical cultures. One of my favorite concerts was when the Buena Vista Social Club toured after Ry's record came out. "A Meeting by a River" is one of my all-time favorite recordings as well.

I realize today that things like the Tijuana Brass records, my mom's 1966 souvenir cruise ship record of the ship's Italian band singing Beatles songs in thick Italian accents, and the TV themes to 60s shows I liked, such as the Avengers, Time Tunnel, The Wild Wild West etc. all also influenced my growing musical brain and preferences.

[Brooks Montgomery]

I started out my musical interest playing harmonica (since I was 12 in the sixties).
I ‘d have to say my biggest “embryonic” influence were the first two Paul Butterfield blues albums. The interplay of Butterfield and Bloomfield was a huge influence. I woodshed’d on “The work song” for many many years, and held Bloomfield’s guitar work as the highest bar for electric guitar.

Age brought many other influences (I love Ry also)…….but the first albums that wore out the needles on my turntable were those first two Butterfield gems.

https://youtu.be/cF6fCzEZ3Hs?feature=shared

[Mike Neer]

I realize today that things like the Tijuana Brass records, my mom's 1966 souvenir cruise ship record of the ship's Italian band singing Beatles songs in thick Italian accents, and the TV themes to 60s shows I liked, such as the Avengers, Time Tunnel, The Wild Wild West etc. all also influenced my growing musical brain and preferences.

Yeah, I’d have to add West Side Story and The Sound of Music as the two single most important recordings for me, in the case of WSS, the original movie soundtrack.

[Brad Bechtel]

I used to say my influences were Hank Williams and Brian Eno. Although to be fair, it was probably more Robert Fripp.

I grew up listening to Buck Owens, the Fifth Dimension, Herb Alpert, Iron Butterfly, Merle Haggard...everything they used to play on the radio.