MAURA KENNEDY

singer-guitarist with folk-pop group the Kennedys

“The only music I heard in my home growing up was music on the TV. We didn’t have a record player, and my mom kept the radio tuned to the school closings, so I was musically reared mostly by the Monkees, the Hudson Brothers, the Smothers Brothers, ‘Hee Haw’ and the Partridge Family.

“When I was five years old, I was mostly into the Partridge Family, and I begged my parents for their album. They bought it for me for my birthday, along with a blue Fisher Price turntable.

“The day after I got it, I announced to the neighborhood kids that I would hold a show on our front steps -- The Maura Boudreau Show. When the kids all gathered around and my brother had collected a nickel from each of them, I nodded over my shoulder to my mom in the living room, and she put the needle down on ‘I Think I Love You.’ My dad let me sing into the microphone that came with his dictation tape recorder, and I sang along with the Partridge Family. That was my first record, and my first paid gig, too.”