Pink Floyd and The Incredible String Band.
Pink Floyd.
1969 is my favourite year. It saw the first moon landing, Woodstock, the only three Fairport Convention LPs to feature both Sandy Denny and Richard Thompson, Pentangle’s “Basket Of Light”, the ISB’s “Changing Horses”, the first two Led Zeppelin albums, Tyrannosaurus Rex’s “Unicorn”, Jethro Tull’s “Stand Up”, the first King Crimson record, the first Mott The Hoople LP, Nick Drake’s first album; the list goes on and on. Of course, I didn’t know much at all about it until some time later.
1969 was the year towards the end of which I turned 14. This meant I could quit the Boy Scouts and join the youth club, which had GIRLS! In September 1969 the school I attended changed from being a grammar school to a comprehensive, and so for the first time in its history it had some GIRL pupils!
Puberty was beginning.
In the two years ending in September 1969, uniquely in my life, I had not conversed with any female person who was not related to me; it was a very odd time, but very conducive to fervent learning at school. The time after it ended was a bit of a shell shock to me.
However, my interest in prog rock had started in the previous summer term, at the start of which we all craved “Abbey Road”. By the end of term we had the Island sampler “Nice Enough To Eat” [see far above], and things were never the same again.
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