At 69 Carnley Ave, New Lambton, Newcastle, where I spent the first decade of my childhood, the family record collection consisted of LPs and singles of popular stage musicals such as My Fair Lady, Kiss Me Kate, The Pajama Game, and all the Rodgers and Hammerstein classics.

Kim CarpenterKim Carpenter

Musicals were my mother’s favourites. I remember albums arriving by special delivery after the shows had just opened on Broadway in New York. My father enjoyed comedy records – in particular The Laughing Record (1922). We would all sit around and laugh our heads off. Happy days.

In my teens in Sydney I began developing my own musical taste. At first it was pop music via the radio (I am of the generation that watched Brian Henderson’s Bandstand and Johnny O’Keefe’s Six O’Clock Rock). By my mid-teens I had something of a cultural revelation as my friends and I bought youth subscriptions to The Australian Opera through Harry M. Miller’s highly...