I was a child of the ’60s, growing up in a New York City suburb in northern New Jersey. Like most kids, my first exposure to music was from my parents, either on their hifi set in our living room or on the car radio. (Those first family cars had only an AM band.) The trouble was, Mom and Dad’s sole music preferences were for classical and opera. I was far too young to realize that popular vocalists and even show tunes were an option.

But sometime in early 1964, Mom came home one day with a record album for my sister and me. I have no recollection decades later of whether I ever asked her what prompted her to buy it. But six-year-old me was completely transfixed by the jacket’s cover of these four guys with matching haircuts. And when she placed the tonearm on side one and the first notes came out of the twin speakers, I was immediately bowled over by “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” And if that was your own introduction to the Beatles, no doubt you were, too.

Within days, the Beatles were performing on The Ed Sullivan Show and we watched it in all its black-and-white glory on the small TV set in my parents’ bedroom. Little did I know that the seeds for my eventual career were being planted that winter.

I’m sure I played Meet the Beatles dozens of times over the next few months. Other favorites were all on that first side, the uptempo tracks “I Saw Her Standing There,” “It Won’t Be Long” and “All My Loving.”

And then, lo and behold, three months later, Mom brought home The Beatles Second Album, and now there was a whole new batch of songs to sing along to, most notably “She Loves You,” “Roll Over Beethoven” and “Long Tall Sally.”

I still have the beat-up vinyl but they’re both in generic album jackets, the original covers having been long destroyed and disposed of. But the magic of listening to those first two LPs in my collection got me thinking: What were the first 100 albums that I owned? It would take a while for my collection to grow; LPs were expensive! And what little allowance I got usually went toward comic books, baseball cards and the occasional 45 rpm single (from the likes of Herman’s Hermits, the Monkees and other recording artists that I heard on 77WABC).

So other than albums as birthday and holiday gifts, it really wasn’t until around 1970, when I got a paper route and began mowing a few neighbors’ lawns, that I was able to buy albums with my own money.

I’ve kept most of my vinyl. Years later, when I first got into the music business, I started getting them for free from the labels. By the mid-’80s, CDs became the configuration of choice and a lot of my peers began to discard their vinyl collections for the silver discs. Not me! I always preferred vinyl and rarely does a day go by that I don’t play at least one album on my turntable.

I’ve done my best to go through my collection to ID those very first 100. Naturally, it’s impossible for it to be an exact science but I’m confident that I’m close. Several disappeared over the years, pilfered perhaps during a weekend away from college by a roommate’s visiting friend. It doesn’t matter.

I’ve organized these by eras and have lumped together multiple titles from several artists, most notably the Fab Four, bless them. I never take for granted that I have gotten to meet and tell many of these greats how much their work has meant to me. [If an album title is highlighted, it’s because one of Best Classic Bands’ great contributors has published an Album Rewind for it, and it’s linked.]

The Beatles
Meet the Beatles, The Beatles Second Album, A Hard Day’s Night, Something New, Beatles VI, Help!, Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles (White Album), Abbey Road

It never ceases to amaze me: Each of those first four were released in 1964 (as was Beatles ’65 which, despite its title, arrived in December. [They’re all included in the 2024 collection The Beatles: 1964 U.S. Albums In Mono, available in the U.S. here and in the U.K. here.] That’s some serious output.

Dave Clark Five
Glad All Over

The Four Seasons
Edizione D’Oro: The 4 Seasons Gold Edition

We’re still in the mid-’60s with this pair. The latter is a two-LP greatest hits collection from 1966 while the former was so chock full of great songs like the title cut, “Bits and Pieces” and “Do You Love Me,” that it sounded like one.

The Monkees
The Monkees, More of the Monkees

They were the biggest-selling recording artists in 1967, thanks to their madcap sitcom and catchy singles. I wrote about their stupendous start in a feature story, Here We Come… The Monkees’ Incredible First Year.

Four Tops
Reach Out

The Temptations
Cloud Nine

Some serious Motown favorites from two of their top singing groups, with instrumentation by the label’s in-house band, the Funk Brothers. Both LPs are in remarkably good shape and somehow the Tops’ album is still in its shrinkwrap. Levi Stubbs’ vocal on “Bernadette” is otherworldly.

The Mamas and the Papas
Farewell to the First Golden Era

The 5th Dimension
Stoned Soul Picnic

Two of music’s finest vocal groups not only recorded many of the same songs, they also shared many of the same Los Angeles studio musicians, the Wrecking Crew.

The Rascals
Time Peace

Tommy James and the Shondells
The Best of Tommy James & the Shondells

The Grass Roots
Their 16 Greatest Hits

Three Dog Night
Captured Live at the Forum

Hits collections from four American bands that charted plenty of radio-friendly songs, ranging from the mid-’60s into the early-’70s.

Simon & Garfunkel
Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme; Bridge Over Troubled Water

Both feature members of the Wrecking Crew. Although I certainly didn’t appreciate it at the time, listen to Hal Blaine’s thunderous drums on “The Boxer.”

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Crosby, Stills & Nash, Déjà Vu, 4 Way Street; Harvest, Songs For Beginners, Stephen Stills Live

Buffalo Springfield
Buffalo Springfield

Individually and collectively, as I was entering my teens and then mid-teens, these guys were the sh*t. If you weren’t there, it’s hard to comprehend just how impactful their music, lyrics, clothing and overall coolness was to a generation.

Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More

I was absolutely blown away by this three-record set, which arrived around nine months after the great 1969 music festival. CSNY, the Who, Arlo, Santana, Cocker… wow! I even loved hearing the stage announcements!

James Taylor
Sweet Baby James

JT was 21 years-old. Not a typo.

Related: I spoke to photographer Henry Diltz about the album cover shoot

YES
The Yes Album, Fragile, Close To the Edge, Yessongs, Tales From Topographic Oceans, Relayer; Stravinsky: The Firebird, Seiji Ozawa, Orchestre de Paris; Olias of Sunhillow, Fish Out of Water, Journey to the Centre of the Earth

I was introduced to the prog-rock superstars by their first hit, “Roundabout,” and quickly fell under their spell. In the early ’70s, they perfected the cycle of album, tour, album, tour. When I saw them at Madison Square Garden, the speakers played Stravinsky’s The Firebird before the band took the stage. (My pretentious self then bought that orchestral recording, too.) I can recall being spellbound by their musicianship, listening to each subsequent album through my first set of headphones. And of course, I also started gobbling up their mid-’70s solo albums.

Related: I spoke with YES’ Jon Anderson about those early years

[At around this time, I became a regular denizen of the two biggest record retailers in my area. Sam Goody at the Garden State Plaza sold stereo equipment and regularly had all-label sales. Korvette’s, at a strip mall in Paramus, didn’t have the same deep selection but they generally featured “loss leaders” each week, priced at around $2.88.]

Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Pictures at an Exhibition, Trilogy, Brain Salad Surgery, Welcome Back My Friends…

I didn’t get to “see the show” until years later when they did a 1992 tour. I took my much-younger brother-in-law and afterwards, backstage, he walked up to Greg Lake and stammered, “Mr. Lake, I just want to say I think you’re fantastic.” Without missing a beat, the brief reply, in a deep British accent was, “You’re very kind.” Still makes me laugh.

The Who
Tommy, Live at Leeds, Who’s Next, Quadrophenia, Odds & Sods

They remain on the very short list of my all-time favorite groups and though I’ve seen them live perhaps a dozen times, only one of those was with Keith Moon.

A wild-but-true story: When they played the Garden for four shows in September 1979, I lucked into floor seats, dead center, probably around the tenth row. During “Baba O’Riley,” Pete Townshend was bashing his tambourine with his fist to punctuate Roger Daltrey’s vocals (on the words: fields, meals, fight, right). Just before his first power chord on the guitar, he tosses the tambourine… right into my waiting hands. He signed it for me years later.

George Harrison, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr
All Things Must Pass, Dark Horse, McCartney, Band on the Run, Ringo

The Beatles may have broken up but they sure were prolific as solo artists with a string of memorable releases.

Chicago
Chicago II

Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin IV

Bachman-Turner Overdrive
Bachman-Turner Overdrive II

Queen
Sheer Heart Attack

Jethro Tull
Living in the Past

Leo Sayer
Just a Boy

By the early ’70s, my radio listening was shifting from Top 40 to a new address at 102.7 WNEW-FM, where the free-form playlist allowed—actually, encouraged—the air staff to play the longer tracks that the artists were recording. In fact, many of the jocks would play an entire side from a new album.

The Rolling Stones
Big Hits (High Tide and Green Grass), Sticky Fingers, Exile on Main St., Goats Head Soup

Yeah, I couldn’t figure out where to place the World’s Greatest Rock ‘n’ Roll Band on this list. I had gotten that early hits collection shortly after it came out but somehow I didn’t acquire one of their studio albums until 1971.

Elton John
Elton John, Madman Across the Water, Honky Chateau, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

Paul Simon
There Goes Rhymin’ Simon

Stevie Wonder
Fulfillingness’ First Finale

It was logical for me to lump these three artists together as their hit-filled new releases were ubiquitous on Top 40 and rock airwaves during my high school years (and the latter two essentially owned the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in the mid-’70s). As for EJ, he was so prolific, churning out album after album, thanks to his great partnership with Bernie Taupin.

Bob Dylan
Before the Flood, Blood on the Tracks

My crowd just wasn’t into the Bard pre-college. I was of course familiar with his singles but was never tempted to buy one of his albums until I heard Blood during my senior year of HS. Of course, it still thrills. I obviously had a lot of catching up to do and have since been a grateful recipient of many of his boxed sets.

Cat Stevens
Tea For the Tillerman, Teaser and the Firecat, Catch Bull at Four

The Doobie Brothers
The Captain and Me, What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits

Electric Light Orchestra
Eldorado

Some more high school favorites whose work has stood up remarkably well all these decades later.

Related: “China Grove”: Admit It, You Don’t Know the Lyrics

Bee Gees
Main Course

I wasn’t sure where to fit this one in, so I gave it its own entry. Naturally, I knew many of their earlier pop hits dating back to the late ’60s, before they hit a cold spell. ’60s-era Top 40 was (and still is) deeply rooted in my DNA. And this gem demonstrates perfectly how a great producer—in this case Arif Mardin—can collaborate so effectively with great songwriting and voices to create sonic perfection.

Eric Clapton
Best of Cream, Derek & the Dominos In Concert, Blind Faith, 461 Ocean Boulevard, Slowhand

Traffic
Spencer Davis’ Greatest Hits, John Barleycorn Must Die, The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys, Welcome to the Canteen

Now at college, I fully embraced the British acts that I had long overlooked. And on visits home, I began to comb the bins at Sam Goody to start buying their back catalog. I’m not sure why, but I didn’t acquire Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs until much later.

Genesis
Nursery Cryme, Genesis Live, Selling England By the Pound, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, A Trick of the Tail; Peter Gabriel

It wasn’t until the band’s first post-Peter Gabriel album, A Trick of the Tail, was released in 1976 that I truly got into them but as you can see above I discovered their earlier stuff and scooped much of it up.

Pink Floyd
The Dark Side of The Moon

Bruce Springsteen
Born to Run

None of my high school friends were into either act and I thus inexplicably ignored DSOTM when it was released in 1973. I finally “got it” around ’75, when Wish You Were Here arrived. I continue to play it all the way through every six months or so and it still satisfies.

In retrospect, I’m able to see the giant holes in that initial collection. Besides the ones that I mentioned that I was late on, I completely ignored such mainstays as the Allman Brothers Band, Grateful Dead, The Doors, the Moody Blues (well, actually, I had one or two of theirs on cassettes), Elvis, the Beach Boys, Eagles, Joni Mitchell and dozens more. I’ve more than made up for those earlier oversights.

***

Unbeknownst to me—and everyone else for that matter—we were in the golden age of rock. There were dozens of acts that reliably released a studio album pretty much every year and they were generally augmented by a two-record live album. We had no idea how good we had it!

My pal Lou Q and I ran our campus record store during our senior year and I would drive to our distributor each week. One of the perks was that I was able to trade in my own albums that I didn’t like and I also allowed myself to pay for new ones at the wholesale price. As you can imagine, my collection had probably grown to the 250-300 range by the time I graduated.

One month later, I applied for and got a job with the music industry trade magazine Record World, and within weeks most of the record labels had put me on their mailing list for new releases. That meant literally hundreds of new albums a year. Naturally, it exposed me to far more genres and artists and I remain incredibly grateful for that opportunity.

When the magazine folded, I got my first record label gig and immediately began sending and receiving packages of new releases from friends I had made at the other labels. This continued for years and my collection, of course, grew into the thousands. But unlike so many of my friends who ditched their vinyl for the shiny new CD format, I kept my LPs (while gladly accepting the silver discs, too). I generally still play at least one album on my turntable every day, always recalling how my collection began with Meet the Beatles in 1964.