My parents were a little too old to appreciate the Beatles (they were far more into the Big Band stuff). I still remember that I almost went to see the Beatles which would turn out to be their second-to-last concert in the U.S. on August 28th, 1966 (just looked up the exact date - never knew it before today) at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.
Some friends and/or relatives tried to talk my parents into going, but they didn't have a sitter so they didn't think they should go (although the others said to take me along). So if they actually
had gone, it probably would have been without me, but I still like to tell the story!
I still have fond memories of listening to the radio constantly and saving up for (or bugging my parents to buy me) whatever was the latest and greatest. I also know that certain radio stations got annoyed with me always calling up to request songs that were longer than they wanted to play (Elton John's Funeral for a Friend / Love Lies Bleeding comes to mind). They preferred songs around 3 minutes back then... ("Hi, can you play the Outlaw's Green Grass and High Tides please?" - "Kid, that song is almost 30 minutes long!!!!" - "Great! Thanks! *click*"
)
I also remember my grandparents giving me this cutting-edge device called a "Transistor Radio" that was small enough for me to put under my pillow and listen to the Top-whatever late into the night after my parents thought I was asleep. My favorite song to wait for was Bowie's Fame and mostly that was just to hear the wild vocal effect part that starts up a couple of octaves and transistions down several octaves ("Fame, fame, fame, fame, fame, fame, fame...").
Now-a-days, I don't listen to the radio because I like to hear songs. Evidentally, stations have forgotten what those are since 70% of the time is taken up with useless yapping or even more annoying commercials. Then, when they DO play some songs, they think only 50 songs were ever created from the 60's through the 80's... After you've listened for just a short while they start repeating!
That's why I use my iPods with huge numbers of songs for each genre so I can put it on shuffle and hear ALL the songs, not just a couple from each artist (heck, the radio stations don't even play all the
hit songs for most artists!). Ah, memories...