Music Unplugged: Handheld freedom

Playing a song these days is as easy as pushing a button in your car, scrolling through your iPod or launching an app on your smart phone. This generation can fill a room with music at the touch of a button with a handheld device the size of your palm. Gone are the days of transistor radios and vinyl LP’s or 45’s. Do you remember listening to music on the big family radio or on the family record player? Do you remember watching your favorite rock ‘n’ roll acts on the Dick Clark Show and the Ed Sullivan show on the one black and white television set in your home? Probably in the living room? Do you remember biking to your local record store? The invention of the transistor radio freed and released you, allowing you to take your music anywhere and listen to what you wanted to listen to! Do you remember your first transistor radio? Do you remember how big and bulky transistor radios were and spending most of your allowance on batteries? But the plus was you could take your music with you. Portable music. What a radical concept! Do you remember how the front speaker that doubled as a tuning dial?

Top songs from that era include “Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zepplin, “Imagine” by John Lennon, “Hotel California” by The Eagles, “What’s Going On” by Marvin Gaye, “Like a Rolling Stone” by Bob Dylan, “Born to Run” by Bruce Springstein, “Folsom Prison Blues” by Johnny Cash, “I Can’t Explain” by The Who, “Dazed and Confused” by Led Zepplin, “Gimme Shelter” by The Rolling Stones.

Share in this trip down memory lane with us by leaving a comment below. Share your top song and the memories it evokes.