Along with hotpants and bell bottoms, sideburns and disco, the 8-Track deck in your dad’s Thunderbird represented not just a nostalgic era, but a revolution in freedom.
VIDEO HERE (17:48 minutes)
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I was lucky. I came of age with cassette tapes, so I've never owned a vehicle with an 8-track with its shitty sound and those irritating interruptions in the middle of the song as it switched tracks.
Cassettes were a great improvement, but trust me when I say that driving non-stop between Iowa and NJ, there was nothing that could compete with an 8-Track playing Hendrix, LedZep, the Airplane, Blue Cheer, etc (even if it was the entire album) rather than listen to the Top 20 or whatever bubblegum each local station was playing.
ReplyDeleteCassettes allowed us to make our own mix tapes, and that was nirvana, and the reason 8-Tracks went the way of the dinosaur...but they were important in their time.
Bought an 8 Track recorder with my 1st Radio Shack stereo in the 70's. Made some great mixes for myself and friends!
DeleteShortly before spring break in 1977, a former girlfriend called me up, so I drove from southwest Missouri to far eastern North Carolina on a doomed lost love mission with Chicago Transit Authority and Head East's Flat as a Pancake shoved into the 8-track much of the way. It was most definitely South California Purples and Never Been Any Reason all the way back.
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv3BByQ77SU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXV764Y9llc
Ka-Chunk! It was awful! My first car had one for a short time. I replaced it with an Alpine console (remember those?) Oh, and the ubiquitous Jensen 6x9s. 71 Camaro.
ReplyDelete8 tracks I remember owning:
Kansas - Point of No Return
Fleetwood Mac - self titled and Rumours
Eagles - Hotel California
Made me all nostalgic
I still have my Jensen equalizer & a pair of 6x9 speakers that I use everyday in my shop.
DeleteKid.
DeleteI saw Fleetwood Mac for free when they first came to the states. They were an unknown band playing to warm up the sound system. They were okay.
My first car, a '66 VW Square back, had an 8 track player in it. Great car for a teenage boy!
ReplyDeletey' don't know what y' missed
ReplyDeleteStill have one for my age-appropriate vehicle, a home player, and a stack of still working tapes. Not that I listen to them anymore - but great conversation pieces
ReplyDeleteYep, I do as well. 75 ChevyVan with a new in the box still wrapped in original shrinkwrap Audiovox 8-track my better 3/4 found at a garage sale. Think she paid 5 bucks for it.
DeleteI got to enjoy my brother's car 8-track, rockin' out to Neil Diamond's "Hot August Night," and Ringo's "Good Night Vienna." My brother was the shit! Eight years older, though. I still relish the music he played.
ReplyDeleteI remember driving around with my dad while he played Redd Foxx on the 8 track.
ReplyDeleteBeing able to play your OWN music was magic, even with the iffy sound quality and track changes. With AM radio you heard every lightning strike and could only hear the clear channel stations on road trips..
ReplyDeleteIn the early 90's we bought a beater of an old Lincoln that had an 8-track deck and it worked! Came to find out that you can still buy current, top 40 music on 8-tracks. It's all bootleg out of Mexico, but they still make 'em. The best place to get used 8-tracks though was Goodwill.
ReplyDelete4-tracks were on the way out when I bought my 8-track player. Installed it under the dash of my '68 Buick Electra. No money for speakers so I wired to the factory speakers in the top of the dash and the rear deck. Stereo balance was front to rear rather than side to side.
ReplyDeletewonder how many realize that the reason that they exist could be because of a bottle of boone's farm, a couple of funny smelling yellow cigarettes (wheat straw papers was all we could get back then), and the 8 track blaring whole lotta love or stranglehold on a moonlit friday night out at the lake ? (the moontan album worked pretty good too)
ReplyDeleteI had an orange pillow in my 69 Cougar which, when called into service, filled the gap between the front bucket seats. Floor shifter got pushed into 1st. Man if that pillow could talk...
DeleteAnnie Green Springs!
DeleteNothing worse than shoving in an eight track on a cold Midwest morning and having the tape wrap around the cap stand of the player unraveling the whole tape.
ReplyDeleteI believe I still have a brand new car 8-track player still new in the box. Was gonna put it in a 1948 greyhound bus I converted to a RV. Never got installed. Took that bus to Sturgis 3 or 4 times. 4 speed on the tree. BĂ ck in the Peppermint Patty says.
ReplyDeleteBetcha you guys don't know who invented the 8 track tape?? Same guy who invented the Lear Jet! John Lear.
ReplyDeleteMy second car was a 3 year old 76 Fiat Spyder. It had a factory 8 track. If you were in 1st, 3rd, or 5th gear the shifter was 3/4" from a 8 track in the dash. To change out the tape you had to be in 2nd, 4th, or reverse. I drove it like that for a year and then swapped out the factory radio with a Pioneer cassette.
ReplyDeleteFast forward to 1989 I was given my mother-in-law's 2 door 82 Delta 88 diesel as I needed a car. It had a AM-FM, 8-track, Cassette, CB radio as the factory radio. It had 98k on the odometer and over the next 5 years I rolled the odometer twice before the head gasket let loose at 218K. I never put an 8 track in it but I had a dozen cassettes that would fit in the center console holder.
One got so used to the pause and clunk in your favourite songs that they became part of the song itself. Hearing it later on cassette or whatever something seemed missing ...
ReplyDeleteThen there were no FM rock and roll stations and AM radio was so monotone the the 8 track was such joyously better sound plus you played what you wanted to hear. AM radio was top 40 of all charts, so Rolling Stones followed by Dean Martin then Conway Twitty then Doris Day...it would drive you crazy.....
DeleteIf all you had was AM radio, the 8 track was the real deal. I had one in my '70 340 Duster with some of the best speakers available and still they couldn't stand up to the weak kneed 8 track. Still, it was the greatest thing to be able to play tapes without having to listen to all the commercials and all the repeats of the Beatles' songs.
ReplyDeleteI had dozens of 8-track tapes, a player in the house and a player in the car. Like posted above, being able to control your own music in the car was outrageous, especially when you consider the genre available back then. AM was 99% talk, country & gospel. FM stations that played hard rock and/or "underground" were few and far between. The upside was that one 8-track tape would play over and over, handy when you were in the back seat and didn't want to break contact. Never not have a book of matches handy, for those few tapes inclined to drag.
ReplyDeleteEd
I was waiting for somebody to mention the book of matches fix...
DeleteIn high school I drove a 65 Impala 4 door with an 8 track under the dash. I hooked up a set of Panasonc home stereo speakers. The 8 track sounded great coming out of them and I could put them on top of the car during pasture parties.
ReplyDeleteFuture wife and I traveled and camped all over California in the 70's in my Pinto Hatchback with Pioneer 8 track that sometimes had to be tuned with a matchbook or a punch or a kick. I recorded Steve Martin and Richard Pryor for the vacations. Some Hot Tuna and ELO, and Steely Dan. Doors. Many more. Easy to do in those days.
ReplyDeleteDamn good days, and she's still here by my side.
I also rocked Big Bells.
ReplyDeleteI wore out my Jerry Jeff Walker "Collectibles" 8 track riding around in my 72 Ranger XLT in High School.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn`t the kachunk that pissed me off. it was the full-minute pause in the middle of Freedom Rider on John Barleycorn Must Die while I waited for the track to change. Traffic should have had the producer beaten for that one. No way to fast-forward through it, either.
ReplyDeleteWith an 8-track player, you always had a book of matches...if you know, you know. ;)
ReplyDeleteI remember many a stoned or otherwise influenced drive and after the tape cycled through the third time or so, you realized you had heard it before and changed tapes. :)
Not only did I put an 8 track in my car, I had a home stereo with a built in 8 track recorder. It would record from the AM/FM receiver, from the external input such as a turntable, or from microphones if you plugged them in.
ReplyDeleteFor everyone who claims to have owned a 8-track.
ReplyDelete“What was the way we got it to stop sqeakiing?”
đŸ¤”
Wedge a matchbook under the tape
DeleteWaaaa.
ReplyDeleteKenny, I drove clear across country, Cal to Fla with three, count 'em, three 8 tracks. Cream, The Band, CCR. Over and over and over and over. And over and over and over.
Play only the first chord of any song on those 8 tracks and I could name the tune.
BTW: Bill Lear, of Lear Jet fame, invented the 8 track. I met one of his grandkids about 20 years ago. He was rich on family history but a real ungrateful SOB.
I had the Craig Pioneer model that mounted on the center console under the dash. It had an integrated FM radio because there was no way you could get an in dash model that would mount in a 66 Plymouth Belvedere (with the 273 V8). That big old bench seat saw a bunch of action in its day. It had police brakes and a posi-traction differential. Woo hoo.
ReplyDeleteDid it have a cop tires, cop suspension, cop shocks?
DeleteI had an 8-track in a 69 VW Type III. First year of fuel injection, piece of absolute crap. Had only one tape: "Wanted, The Outlaws". Worked in Ingalls Shipyard Pascagoula Ms. Dangerous car, dangerous work, good tape with lots of inappropriate breaks. Left it ln in a parking lot, keys in the ignition in the Piggly Wiggly, Hattisburg Ms as the car would have never made it, Broke, hungry I hitchhiked to New Iberia LA to work as a deckhand. Crazy crews manned with thieves and literally pirates. Should have died a dozen times. Joined to military. Much safer
ReplyDelete8 tracks were great but thank you allison steele for making my youth enjoyable.
ReplyDelete"those irritating interruptions in the middle of the song as it switched tracks" I was an editor in a duplicating house back in the 70's. I got the job of arranging the tracks from an album on an 8 track as well as editing (fading the tracks down in the middle then up to finish the song). It really bothered me to do this, but that was the job. It still bothers me. Fortunately, it's not the worst of my sins.
ReplyDeleteWell, in '69 traded my E-type Jag for a 1968 Mustang with a factory Cobra engine with three deuces...auto trans, chromies and hood locks, etc. Had an 8 track in the dash...maybe factory?
ReplyDelete...Wonder what that package would be worth now?
I installed a Craig 8 track and a pair of Bass 48 speakers in my first car. A '60 TR-3A Triumph. This was in '72. I had to replace the speakers every few months. Speakers and a convertible don't get along if you leave the top down and it rains that night. I also had an 8 track recorder. I'd borrow albums and 45s from friends and make what was later called mix tapes. Blanks were a buck and I'd make them tapes in exchange for the loan. Hendrix, Black Sabbath, Iron Butterfly, Elton John, and many others. Now it's all MP3's on a thumb drive plugged into the truck stereo.
ReplyDeleteYou guys are all bringing back memories of some great times. Wish I could feel sorry for today's kids and what they'll never know. Oh, no I don't.
ReplyDelete