Woah, where do I start?
The earliest records I remember having were some Beatles records that my older cousins had given me when I was about 5 or 6; I have distinct memories of listening to
Meet the Beatles and my 45 of
Elanor Rigby. 
I also liked John Denver a whole lot.
As I got a little older, I usually heard and got to like whatever my older brother was playing, which was a lot of Elton John (whom I still love), Chicago and Jim Croce, but also Crosby, Stills and Nash, Bachman Turner Overdrive, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, amongst others. My friends and I also listened to Top 40, and we'd each bring our bunch of 45's to each others' houses and "play records".
When I was about 11 or 12 I discovered Peter Frampton, and he was my favorite artist for several years. I've recently rediscovered him, and I think he's even better now.
Let's see- in high school, the crowd I hung out with was into heavy metal, so that's how I got into Van Halen, which was my favorite band for a while, Black Sabbath, Ozzy, Iron Maiden, Scorpions, and whatever "hair metal" band was hot at the time. Then, I had a boyfriend who was totally into Rush and Frank Zappa, and that interested me in their stuff. (They guy's long gone, but the music stayed
)
I found Meat along the way, and you can find that story in the "Early Meat Loaf Memories" thread.
And then there's Bruce... that is a long story, which I won't get into here. But let's just say that Bruce is my favorite artist, and the one whose music touches me the most. I need to add, though, that if it wasn't for Bat I, and Roy Bittan's piano, I might not have liked
Born to Run as much as I did (I had Bat first).
Recently, my friend has been introducing me to some country artists (Kenny Chesney is her Bruce), and I'm liking it- it does cross over into rock quite a bit. I saw Keith Urban open for the Eagles, and he is an amazing guitar player!
I know I'm leaving out a ton of artists; I'll pretty much listen to anything that strikes my fancy.