Believe it or not, my first exposure to The Beatles was from the cartoon series. They were the biggest musical act in the world and I would not have known they existed if it weren’t for television. The only time I recall listening to the radio when I was very young was whenever my dad was driving us somewhere and I have no recollection of any of the music being played.
I really didn’t start listening to music until my grandparents gave me a very small transistor radio one Christmas when I was nine years old. That opened up a whole new world to me. I remember summers when my brothers and I would pitch a tent in the back yard and “camp” out. All we had was that little radio, but it seemed like the most fun in the world to listen for hours on that tiny little speaker with the crappy sound.
One song that I was particularly fond of in the summer of 1971 was “Uncle Albert”. I was ten at the time and it was in heavy rotation on the radio. I had no clue that it was by one of my favorite cartoon characters, Paul McCartney.