Yesterday I was listening to a cassette tape recording of a hip-hop group called the Tower of Power when something very interesting happened.  Here is the story.

The Background

The first popular and common way of distributing recorded music was through the use of vinyl records.  These were played back using a gramophone/phonograph/turntable/record player (basically all the same thing just with different names).

As recording techniques improved the music would be recorded onto magnetic tape.  Recording and playback was accomplished using large reel to reel tape recorders.  This was then transferred to vinyl records for distribution.

In the mid- sixties cassette tape recorders were developed.  These were relatively compact and could be cheaply produced and mass marketed.  They also allowed for home recording using a microphone attached or built into the recorder.  (Overtime, they also spawned several different playback device variations – boom boxes and the Sony Walkman being the main ones)

In the beginning of the nineteen seventies, music artists songs were being sold on both vinyl albums and cassette tapes ( and a variation on cassettes called 8 track tapes).

By the nineteen nineties a third major format had been developed and entered popular use, compact discs.  These could be recorded and played on computers and mainly just played back on compact disk players.  For a time compact disks (cd) became the predominant media for distributing recorded music.

Today CD’s, vinyl records and cassette tapes have largely been replaced by digital music distributed by online methods.   Although CD, vinyl are still produced and sold (vinyl mainly to avid collectors who believe the sound is better) cassette tapes have largely disappeared.

Hence this background, so those of you not familiar with cassette tapes would understand a little bit about them.

The Story

The Tower of Power focused on hip hop and funk genre of music in the early nineteen seventies migrating to disco in the back half of the decade and then falling from popularity.

When I purchased a used Toyota Corolla in 1980  it had a built in cassette tape player and the previous owner forgot his Tower of Power tape in the player.  So I acquired it.

Back in the early nineteen eighties, my youngest brother was babysitting our daughter one evening; she was probably between 9 and 16 months old at the time.  My brother was experimenting with getting our daughter to say “da da”.  He got so excited with his success he grabbed my Tower of Power tape (which was probably near at hand or even in the cassette recorder) and although it was a “pre-recorded” tape he proceeded to override that and record our daughter saying “da da” along with his encouraging words.

Yesterday I was relaxing in the “man cave” yesterday grooving to a little seventies funk by Tower of Power when suddenly the music was interrupted by my brothers recording.

Thanks bro!   The nostalgic surprise was cool but a pre-recorded tape – really – have you heard of blanks?  Now I remember why you weren’t asked to babysit much.