My Record Collection JO NEARY
“It was my dad who set me off. He came from Coventry and he knew some of Fairport Convention, Kevin Dempsey and people in the more experimental folk scene. He’d play my little brother and me these records, and Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, Cream and John Cooper-Clark. When were 10 and 11 he gave us our first records; mine was the sampler Nice Enough To Eat. Samplers are a beautiful, democratic idea and the modern equivalent is Now That’s What I Call Music. This is the prog version of that, and it’s got loads of classics on it. I got to know every crackle and grew to love every track.
Dad was an English teacher and he’d play things like to his class, get them to close their eyes while listening, then write what had come into their mind. At home, he’d play us records in the dark. He had a ceremony to playing vinyl, dusting it off, putting it on this beautiful stereo then sitting back in an armchair with his eyes closed. There’s something wonderful about that reverence. Consequently I never have music playing in the background, it gets my full attention.
