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Dylan Brown
Com 111: Oral History Project
Interview Participant: Scott Brown, 51
Relationship: Father
Part I
A. Sound Recording
Growing up in the 1970s, music was a huge part of day-to-day life. Before there were
smart phones, iPads and the like, kids and young adults spent a lot of their time listening to
records. For my dad Scott, musicians and bands like Elton John, KISS, Rush, Aerosmith and his
favorite, ABBA, were considered great music. “I liked it because it wasn’t what my parents
listened to, which was mostly country. Listening to what you wanted made you happy,” he
said. Another favorite of him and his now wife, Rose, was Madonna, mostly because Madonna
was edgy, independent and expressed herself through her sometimes controversial style. Scott
used to listen to his records on a big console stereo, which was located in his living room. He
also had a manual stereo in his bedroom once he was a bit older. The console stereo looked like a
big piece of furniture, and inside was the record player. His parents didn’t pay much attention to
the records he would bring into the house, but some of his friends weren’t allowed to listen to
what he called “dark metal,” like Alice Cooper and Black Sabbath. “I stayed away from those,”
he said.
In his house, records were usually played during the day, but he wasn’t allowed to play
them at night. There were no headphones when he was growing up, so there was no way to listen
to music privately. “After about 9:00 p.m., the music usually had to stop,” he said. The
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records he bought varied in price. A 45, which is a small record with only one song on it, would
usually cost one dollar or less. A 75, or a standard album with all the songs, would cost between
six and seven dollars. Besides shopping in a record store, he sometimes bought records at the
mall. One of his favorite places to buy records was called Columbia House, where you could
purchase 10 records for one penny. The only stipulation with Columbia House was that for
getting 10 records for almost no money, you had to buy three full-priced records throughout the
year. He heard a lot of the music he liked on the radio and television. American Band Stand,
which he would watch all the time, would have records rated by the dancers on the show, so it
was really the only way to find new music. Scott’s parents had many records in the house, so
they definitely enjoyed listen to music, and Scott said there was always something new to listen
to in the house. “But I still stayed far away from the country records,” he said.
B. Radio
During Scott’s youth in the 1970s, it was the beginning of what could be referred to as the
Digital Revolution, because there were a lot of technological advances happening. But for a
period of time, there was only AM radio available, which had very limited stations. “I
remember driving down the road and seeing huge radio towers, which you don’t see any
more today,” he said. Out of the very few stations that were available, he listened to WAEB,
which was American Top 40, and WSAN, which was Rock ‘n’ Roll. Scott liked to listen to those
stations because there was continuous music and variety of songs.
Radio was different from records because you didn’t really have to think about what you
wanted to hear next. “It would sometimes take me an hour of sifting through records to find
one I was in the mood to listen to,” he said, “with the radio, you could just sit back, relax
and listen to the music as it came, and it was usually exactly what you wanted to hear.” He
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couldn’t recall anything about commercials on the radio, and there was really nothing he could
recall about any public concern having to do with radio commercials. He didn’t listen to any
educational programs on the radio, because most of the educational programs were on television
at the time. The most significant problem he can remember with the radio was that there was
always so much static. “It was so frustrating, because you would constantly be having to
move it around to get the best sound. It was difficult to hear everything clearly,” he said.
As previously mentioned, AM radio had very limited stations, and if you couldn’t afford
records you would have to listen to the radio. When FM radio came on the scene, “it was a big
deal,” he said. With FM radio, there were so many more options and variety of stations, not just
songs. “If you wanted to listen to Rock, you would have maybe five or six stations you could
choose from that played Rock music, as opposed to just one,” he said. The sound on FM
radio was also a lot clearer. With more options and better sound, the emergence of FM radio
transformed the listening experience in a very positive way. And as expected, the popularity of
AM radio stations began to drastically decline.
C. Television/Cable
Television was invented before Scott was born, so he never knew a time without it. He
would normally watch TV at home with his parents and sister, and the earliest memory he has of
any TV program was Sesame Street. Although Scott isn’t sure what the cost of his television was,
he can remember upgrading to bigger screens as they became available. When he was young, the
television was something not everyone had, but those who were fortunate enough made it a
major part of their home: “The TV set I had was built into wood, so it was considered a piece
of furniture. You could put a lamp or picture frames on top of it,” he said. His family had a
cable TV, so reception was never really a problem. The major stations were channels three, six
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and 10. “We only had 13 channels,” he said. Sunday nights around 7:00 were usually prime
television time, which is when The Wonderful World of Disney would be on. He would watch a
lot of cartoons on Saturday afternoons, and one of his favorite programs was Creature Double
Feature. One of the most popular aspects of television was the ability to watch sports. “Wide
World of Sports would usually be on all weekend in my house,” he said.
With the emergence of television in more and more homes, there were positive and
negative aspects of this somewhat new technology. “It brought the family together,” Scott said.
Most families could only afford one television per household, so if everybody wanted to watch
something they would be forced to huddle around the TV, which is something a lot of families
don’t do anymore. A negative aspect of the television was that it took away from outdoor time.
“When I was a young boy, about nine or 10 years old, we would play outside with our
