What keyboard music influenced you?

[BuckW]

And perhaps prompted you to start playing keyboards?

 

For me it was Yes starting with the Fragile album, Tarkus by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer and the many rock bands using Hammonds with Leslies most notably Uriah Heep with their signature dirty overdriven Hammond/Leslie sound, Santana, Allman Brothers, and Bloodrock.

 

I would like to include Genesis' Trick of the Tail album but by that time I was well into keyboards.

[BbAltered]

I always thought my listening habits were more important than whatever keyboard equipment I own - so I put it in my "sig line".

[Song80s]

And perhaps prompted you to start playing keyboards?

 

For me it was Yes starting with the Fragile album, Tarkus by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer and the many rock bands using Hammonds with Leslies most notably Uriah Heep with their signature dirty overdriven Hammond/Leslie sound, Santana, Allman Brothers, and Bloodrock.

 

I would like to include Genesis' Trick of the Tail album but by that time I was well into keyboards.

 

more 4-7 yrs earlier for me.

 

I admired the Doors , what acoustic instruments were used on Sargent Pepper, Emerson/Nice, CTA/Chicago and other local bands from Chicago ( Cryan Shames, Buckinghams)

 

While 1967 was a breakout year, there were various psychedelic, and ' bubble gum ' groups using Farfisa/Vox prior to that.

 

I was in a garage band of sorts in '65 and we performed top 40. I played a Farfisa Professional and doubled on rhythm guitar ( Gibson ES 335).

 

Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

[Synthoid]

So many... but early influences would include the Close to the Edge album (Rick Wakeman), Vangelis Pulstar, and Jean Michel Jarre's Oxygène album.

 

 

 

[analogika]

"Oxygène", "Equinoxe", "Concerts in China", and "Magnetic Fields".

 

And I recall Santana's "Moonflower" being quite present in my kid life, with Tom Coster's fantastic work.

[cphollis]

Lotsa influences, but the one album that pushed me over the edge was Elton John's Don't Shoot Me album in 1973.

 

Not only did I like it, all the young ladies did as well ... so let's do this keyboard thing?

[ElmerJFudd]

Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Joplin, Ellington, Peterson, Tatum, Evans, JL Lewis, R. Charles, Emerson, Lord, B. Joel, E. John, G. Downes, J. Cain, Connick Jr., Preston, Corea, Hancock, Defrancesco...

[RABid]

60's cartoons that played classical and jazz, Autobahn, Frankenstein, Jan Hammer.

[Markay]

Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, Smetna, Dvorak, Alan Price and everyone thereafter.

[Synthaholic]

Lenny Dee, Earl Grant, Billy Preston, Rick Wakemans solo albums, especially Journey to the Centre of the Earth, Elton John, Brain Salad Surgery.

[David R]

I've told this story before but the first album I remember obsessing over was Billy Joel's 52nd Street. I've been a Billy Joel fan(atic) ever since. When River of Dreams came out there was a companion video where he talks about the artwork of Dave Brubeck's Time Out. I bought that album with my 10th birthday money, just because Billy had talked about it.

 

"Blue Rondo a la Turk" and "Strange Meadowlark" made me want to become a jazz pianist. No word of a lie, I can trace everything I do back to Time Out and 52nd Street. The music that has moved me most since then always has an element of that physical, visceral response I had to those two albums. I'm lucky that I got to tell both Brubeck and Phil Ramone that I owe them my career.

[J. Dan]

Grew up with Billy Joel, Elton John, and Styx. Went through stages in metal, then punk rock, then when I bought my first synth and started getting back into electronic music, it was Sparks, Devo, Yaz, Soft Cell.

 

Edit: how did I miss Rush? I bought every single Rush album through Power Windows. That was one band that I continued to listen to rough my other phases. I also missed Supertramp. As far as albums:

Glass Houses

Elton John's Greatest Hits

Grand Illusion

Paradise Theater

Breakfast in America

[dongna]

I had been taking piano lessons as a kid for a couple of years, and had gotten into some piano and keyboard-centric pop music of the time (Elton, Billy Joel, Supertramp, etc.) But the single event that motivated me to start taking piano much more seriously was being invited to a friend's birthday party where we were taken to see The Sting. There I first became exposed to Scott Joplin's music and was completely captivated-- and for the first time seriously self-motivated to learn music that was considerably beyond my ability.

[Six-string-man]

Jon Lord, Ken Hensley and Ray Manzarek.

[Moonglow]

Like many here, I started taking piano lessons at an early age. But when I was around 14-15 I started tagging along with my Dad, who played tenor sax in a popular wedding/dance band, to his gigs. The organist in his band was my first real exposure to a gigging keyboardist, and he kind of took me under his wing. Since they were a wedding/dance band, they played songs from A-Z, so I enjoyed becoming familiar with a wide-range of music, and I would occasionally sit-in for a song or two. It was also my first exposure to the hang and camaraderie of being in a band. So it was these experiences, more than any one type of music, that got me into playing keyboards.

 

Of course, after I was hooked I started listening critically to keyboards in popular music. Santanas Greatest Hits was my first influence in this regard. I recall having to repeatedly listen through the entire recording of Evil Ways on our 8-track player to learn the solo/song! As I grew older, I started listening to Journey (due to the Gregg Rolie connection) and then this dude named Emerson, who totally messed me up.

[David Loving]

My parents bought a Baldwin Acrosonic when I was about 5. The sainted Ms. Thormann with her olive jar full of 'red hots,' [rewards], and her rhythm stick [correction]. Later John Martin and I learned every record the day it came out, Elvis, Little Richard, et al. Long time ago in days of yore.

 

[NoLights]

First -- Alan Price with the Animals; later Cedar Walton (Jazz messengers) and early Herbie Hancock

[Sundown]

The Cars and Van Halen got me interested in keyboards. I was a child during the birth of MTV, so seeing Cars videos and The Buggles, etc. got me interested in the instrument. Van Halen showed me how it could be incorporated into traditional rock (though certainly bands like Styx, Triumph, etc. did that long before Van Halen).

 

When I got the first and only ABWH album, my eyes opened up to what keyboards could be, and I went backwards and explored all of Yes's 70's material (along with ELP, Pink Floyd, etc). Rush had a big influence on me as well.

 

I went through a big Doors phase, so I listened to a lot of Ray Manzarek with his novel left hand piano bass.

 

I got into piano jazz primarily through Chick Corea's Akoustic Band, and then I dove into Bill Evans, Wynton Kelly, etc.

 

Though he doesn't have a huge catalog, Patrick Leonard is a big influence on me. Some of his piano work just blows me away (he has great chord progressions and melodies).

 

My early EDM influences include Crystal Method, Roni Size, Photek, LTJ Bukem, DJ Shadow, and mixes by DJ DB.

 

Nowadays I'll listen to just about anything, but it was those early MTV videos that piqued my interest in synths.

 

[Losendoskeys]

And perhaps prompted you to start playing keyboards?

 

For me it was Yes starting with the Fragile album, Tarkus by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer and the many rock bands using Hammonds with Leslies most notably Uriah Heep with their signature dirty overdriven Hammond/Leslie sound, Santana, Allman Brothers, and Bloodrock.

 

I would like to include Genesis' Trick of the Tail album but by that time I was well into keyboards.

Definitely Tarkus and Foxtrot - I NEEDED a Mellotron and a Hammond B3 in that order...........

[Sundown]

I should add that my grade school had a lab that actually had an EMS Synthi and a few other analog modules. I joined the program late, and I never got to hear it fired up, but if I had, it would have been game-over at that point...

 

It was a few years later that I got my first real synth (Roland D-20).

 

[Rod S]

I would divide in piano and synths:

 

Piano - Elton John, Billy Joel, Freddie Mercury (listed to a lot of Queen in my youth), Supertramp, Journey.

Synths - 80s synth pop and some rock. In no particular order - Erasure, Depeche Mode, van halen , bon jovi... and others.

 

This is the first album that I remember listening to with synths. Sounds cheesy, but 6 year old me though it was pretty cool!

 

My high school had a CZ-101. Not too exciting. We did have a pretty decent baby grand in the auditorium which I got to play in a few times.

[George88]

Kraftwerk & Midnight Star.

[marino]

In the very beginning, it was classical music. That's what I heard at home, plus I had a couple of school mates who had started very early taking piano lessons, so I had a first-hand demonstration of classical piano. I already had a little electronic organ and learned chords and stuff on it, but I started begging my parents for piano lessons. They gave up after several months of begging, found me a teacher, and rented an upright piano. So during the early years, I played mostly classical stuff and some occasional pop songs. Even during the events in the following years, classical music stayed as a constant.

 

Btw, around 1970, prog rock hit the world. My world anyway. A turning point for me was "Pictures" by ELP. That aggressive, majestic organ sound, and the Moog theme on "Blues Variations", really set the ultimate goal in my head.

 

But a couple of years later (I was about 15), my friends brought me to Umbria Jazz, the biggest jazz festival in Europe. I had heard jazz before, but I wasn't able to dig into its inner workings. Well, during the course of a week that summer, I heard the whole history of jazz. Many more great pianists that I was able to digest at once! I was overwhelmed and mesmerized - but I decided that that kind of immediate self-expression was a worthwhile goal to pursue; I spent the following years trying to understand how that kind of improvisation worked. I went to Testaccio (the only jazz school in existence in Rome back then), worked a lot by myself, listened to an army of different jazz musicians, and at 17 or 18 I started playing jazz with others.

 

It's really a lot more complicated than this - but I guess it's enough for today.

 

[Bob L]

Jon Lord was a huge influence on me. I remember picking out the notes to "Lazy" and unknown to me I was teaching my self pentatonic scales and blues. Much as I enjoy Emerson and Wakeman's work, I could not play that stuff, but I could pick out notes in Jon Lord's solos and he helped me figure out how keyboards fit (should fit) into a rock band. Brian Auger also an influence (but again... can't play like that dude!!!).

 

Later in life I took jazz lessons and Bill Evans was an influence. I could never play like him either, but his choice of the American songbook (Rogers and Hart, other show tunes, Burt Bacharach tunes) and focus on voicings influence my jazz playing. Someday I hope to have time to return to jazz and put the time in to make that style more natural for me. Vince Guaraldi also an influence (same reason - voicings) as far as jazz goes for me.

[El Lobo]

I'm an old R&B guy. I was knocked out by the sound of Ray Charles playing his Wurlitzer on "What'd I Say." There is no more soulful sound ever recorded.

 

Then I was captivated by whoever played organ (Tommy Tucker?) on "Hi-Heel Sneakers."

 

[video:youtube]

 

[video:youtube]

[Joe Muscara]

Jump.

[David Emm]

Conlon Nancarrow. Of course, I can't play this and neither can you.

 

[Josh Paxton]

Players who changed my life, in chronological order (relative when I discovered them, not to their own careers):

Ray Charles

Bruce Hornsby

Harry Connick, Jr.

Kenny Kirkland

Stevie Wonder

Billy Preston

James Booker

Dr. John

Henry Butler

[Adan]

I can't remember exactly how I stumbled on Brian Auger at around age 15. I was already familiar with a lot of jazz and rock, but when I heard Auger something really clicked, I realized those two worlds could be seamlessly joined. I was influenced by his style and licks, but at a higher conceptual level, he exemplified the idea that you could chart a path between genres.

[drohm]

I started classical piano lessons at 7yrs old. Then, I heard two artists that opened my ears to synthesizers, etc. I heard my older brother (+10 yrs) listening to Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. I also heard Kitaro on a late night ambient radio program. I was hooked. My parents surprised me with a Roland D-20 for Christmas when I was 14yrs old. I had just missed the good analog years and the music stores were full of the new fm synthesizers. It did not matter...I had a blast with the sequencer on the D-20 making songs.