I'm taking a break from blogging.

I appear to have lost my Ghost mojo.

I'll see you I hope on Twitter and Soundcloud and This Is My Jam - and in that chair in the corner of the Snug.

Happy New Year companeros x

Have Yourselves A Merry Little Christmas

Merry Christmas lovelies - and thanks for your company again this year.

You made this a very happy place x

Merry Christmas Baby

I'd forgotten all about iTunes Protected AAC Files (R.I.P.) until I realised ye olde download I have of this is one.

So here's a Soundcloud thingy instead - of 'Take 1' as you can see, a slightly different version to the one we all know and love (which is 'Take' what, I wonder?).



I'd offer you an egg nog if I knew what one was.

Gee Whiz

Banish those bad Christmas music blues - let Carla show you how.

Carla Thomas - 'Gee Whiz, It's Christmas' (1962)

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (18th July 1918 - 5th December 2013)

 

'For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others'

Miles Davis - 'Amandla' (1989)
Letta Mbulu - 'Amakhamandela (Not Yet Uhuru)' (1991)
Ladysmith Black Mambazo - 'Long Walk To Freedom (Halala South Africa)' (2006)

Through His Eyes, Awkwardly

I've got this on Tamla Motown's 20 Mod Classics and I'd upload it for you were it not for that pesky box.net bandwidth issue.  Also, today I picked up my new varifocal lenses and I'm feeling woozy with them - this before I've touched a drop, too.

Onward, awkwardly onward, to the corner shop for Guinness.

Big Deal

You'll have heard this if you're a regular BBC6Music listener, they're playing it a lot.

I really like its slow dragging shoegaze-whoozy MBV fuzz and XX-style m/f vocals.

The song title's not for your Nan, I'll concede, but the choon'll sure heat up your frosty Friday.



Those big Damon radio files I posted and other fab grooves you've been giving some lurve to mean I bust my box.net download limit this month.

What should I do till it tops up again in December? Post some favourite recipes? Bugger off for a bit?
 
Answers on a postcard to the usual address.

Yeah Baby

Let's get the funkin' weekend in heah.

Charles Earland - 'Coming To You Live' (1980)

Sir John Tavener (28 January 1944 – 12 November 2013)

John Tavener - 'The Protecting Veil: I. The Protecting Veil' (1992)

[London Symphony Orchestra (conductor: Gennady Rozhdestvensky); Steven Isserlis (cello)]

Gloria's Choice

I said to him, 'You need some decent bloody music round here and a bit less of all this Damian Albran crap and the reggy' (not that I mind a bit of reggy now and then if it has a good beat but I will NOT tolerate the funny cigarettes, not after the business with our Darren who's even now never off his arse and that bloody gameboy, the useless sod) and what does Mr High And Mighty say but "Alright then Glo, YOU choose the music for Friday" like he's doing me a big bloody favour all of a sudden, so here I go. And you can spare us your sarky backchat Van Dyke, I knew your mother when she'd nobbut two bob to rub together for a pair of bloody knickers.

This is for my Norman, God rest his soul.

Les Paul & Mary Ford - 'Goodnight Irene' (1965) 

Capital Radio Two

I don't listen to Radio 2 so I missed this at the time, but it made it into that wonderful repository-of-all-things-groovy that is Soundcloud recently and I liked it so much I thought I'd share it here.

In a two hour show 'standing on his head for' Dermot O'Leary, Damon and co-host Paul Simonon (yes, that one) talk Blur, The Clash, English music hall and North Korea, interview Ken Dodd and Idris Elba and play Johnny Cash singing in German and the theme from 'Are You Being Served?'. Simonon also reveals that Joe Strummer was troubled by the startling resemblance of the 'Spanish Guns' melody to another 70s TV theme...

If you've some ironing, washing up, train travel or DIY to do this week, this'll oil your wheels nicely.

Damon Albarn on BBC Radio 2 - Part 1 (2013)
Damon Albarn on BBC Radio 2 - Part 2 (2013)
Damon Albarn on BBC Radio 2 - Part 3 (2013)

[Tracklistings in the Lyrics tab when played in iTunes. First broadcast Saturday 5th October 2013]

Magic And Loss

We'd been remembering John, and I was remembering Dad, who died in May and would have been 90 yesterday; all these years and I never realised he shared a birthday with Roy Lichtenstein (to the day), Sylvia Plath and Dylan Thomas. Many thoughts of not going gentle into that good night, therefore. And then I wake from a post-lunch snooze and turn on the internets and hear about Lou.

Well, that was one I didn't expect. It always seemed like Lou would outlive us all.

And we've probably all got an opinion on him, and he hated to be pinned down. He was a curmudgeonly misanthrope, he was a romantic; he was a dark literato, he was a waspish doo-wop fan; he was an ex pop hack, he was an avant gardeist; he was New York City tough, he was a fucked up nice Jewish boy from the suburbs; he was a conceptualist, he was a three chord guitar player with his bullshit detector tuned.

He was REAL (maaan); he invented himself (in true Warhol style).

You pass through arrogance, you pass through hurt
You pass through an ever present past
And it's best not to wait for luck to save you
Pass through the fire to the light

He was Lou.

There's a bit of magic in everything
And then some loss to even things out

Lou Reed - 'Magic And Loss - The Summation' (1992)

Friday Reggae # 40 (Keeping It Peel)

Thanks for everything John, but especially the reggae x

Steel Pulse - 'Drug Squad' (Peel session) (1980)

Steel Pulse - 'Sunshine And Shining' (Peel session) (1980)

Steel Pulse - 'Nyabinghi' (Peel session) (1980)

[respect to the original taper]

Friday Reggae # 39

Why aren't there groups with ace names like Tommy McCook & The Supersonics any more? Eh?

The Jamaicans - 'Ba Ba Boom' (1967)

Yeah Baby

Make mine a large one, fnarr.

This is a groove.


Lou Donaldson - 'Who's Making Love?' (1969)

Notes & Tones

Miles Davis - 'Moon Dreams' (1950)

a davyh vinyl rip, with crackles.

This blog is now seven years old.

'Thanks for dropping by, it'd be stupidly lonely here without you' x

Hats Off

As if seeing Young Marble Giants after a mere 33 years on Sunday were not enough, I am off to catch Roy Harper at the Royal Festival Hall later this month courtesy my good friend Dr.Al, who was nifty in picking up tickets as soon as they went on sale. All the reviews I have read of his new album (and all the things I have heard from it) have been very, very good indeed, so I'm looking forward to it mucho.

Incidentally, so taken was I by the Union Chapel on Sunday (my first visit...I tried to see Goldfrapp there a few years back but it was several times over sold-out) that I looked up a bit about its history. According to Wikipedia, past church organists there have included John Henry Gauntlett, Ebenezer Prout, Fountain Meen and John Hooker.

That is the finest list of fantastic names I have seen in a good while.

Here's some (new) Roy.

Roy Harper - 'Time Is Temporary' (2013)

Yeah Baby

I've heard this a few times in the past week because of the Sound Of Cinema malarkey on the BBC.

And so have been reminded of its greatness.

'Look at me, what do ya see? You see a bad Mother'

James Brown - 'The Boss' (1973)

[There's a 'blaxploitation' soundtrack special on the Huey Show this Sunday].

A Foggy Day

We woke in a real pea-souper today, so this was the first thing that came to mind.

In the time it's taken me to get the software working and the vinyl computerised, the sun's come out, but that's OK because it does musically too, a minute in, thanks to Jimmy Rowles (piano) and Barney Kessel (guitar).

Incidentally, if you fancy hearing a version of this classic George & Ira Gershwin song 'narrated' by Dirk Bogarde (and why wouldn't you?) you can do so on Andy Weatherall's 'Selector After Dark' mix for the British Council (thanks Swiss Adam), which contains many other splendid things besides.

Billie Holiday - 'A Foggy Day' (1957)

a davyh vinyl rip

Yeah Baby

'When you speak, a symphony begins'.

5' 22 of  awesomeness. 

I shall require a beverage.

Donald Byrd - 'You And The Music' (1975)

Autumn Art

A davyh vinyl rip, for sure.

Art Pepper - 'Autumn Leaves' (1960)

[Art Pepper (as) Dolo Coker (p) Jimmy Bond (b) Frank Butler (d)]

Out Of The Cool

More autumnal jazz, wistful for warmer places - this from the long-time Miles Davis collaborator, orchestrator and friend's 1960 big band album, one of the first four releases on the legendary Impulse! label.

The Gil Evans Orchestra - 'Where Flamingos Fly' (1960)

Into The Cool

That last blast of heat gone, and in comes the cool; slanting sunlight through the trees, and sad jazz piano's now the thing, it really is.

Michael Garrick Trio - 'Prayer' (1972)

Traditional

David Sylvian - 'September' (1987)

The Round And Round

Just back from frolics Up West for the eldest's fourteenth birthday today: pedaloing on a sunny Serpentine, noodles in Wagamama and this crazy ride on the Southbank (them, not us - I can't do the round and round, and Mrs H can't do the heights).

I thought it'd be a wheeze tonight to post the number one record from when I turned 14, but my Guinness Book Of British Hit Singles tells me it was 'Don't Like Mondays' by The Boomtown Rats, which hardly seems appropriate.

So here's another one from my early teens that I'd always sing to her when she was little.

Blondie - 'Pretty Baby' (1978)

Post West

It was a short, sweet week, golden in the way that good weather weeks are at this time of year; sunlight buttery on fields still green. I never usually do crosswords, but I did one every day, sitting in a beach chair under a tree, seven buzzards above the house one hot mid-afternoon, and in the evenings watching the swallows wheel.

Trips to the seaside. A sunny Bank Holiday, who'd have thought it, and the Brits out doing what the Brits do best. Sand in the shoes and salt on the skin.

Less pleasantly, today I had laser surgery in both my eyes for ocular hypotension. Happy days.

Ronnie Lane's Slim Chance - 'Harvest Home' (1976)

Wish You Were Here

Here's a lazy repeat another chance to hear my Zummerzet mix thingy from two yers ago.

We're back to that London tomorrow.

Gone West - a davyh mix by Davyh on Mixcloud

Yeah Baby

I've been Up West today with all those foreign tourists in their purple kagoules, stonewashed denim and Nikes; mullets, rucksacks and city maps. London seems drained of Londoners - and it'll be drained of us too from Tuesday when we're off to Zummerzet for a week, ooh-arr.

I have one more work thing to do - Frankfurt and back on Monday for just three hours work. Mad.

Tell you what, here's 7:58' of some well-jazzy dubstep.

Boss.

Skream -  'Summer Dreams' (2006)

"Sunny"

I was playing this last week, as you do when the season comes around, and out of curiosity happened to look it and Bobby Hebb up. I'd never thought of it as any more than a sweet soul/pop song, the kind of thing that crops up on 60s summer compilations (that's where I have it): I had no idea it had such dark origins or was rooted in any kind of tragedy.

Turns out that like another lovely 60s pop song, The Beach Boys 'Warmth Of The Sun', it was written in the dark aftermath of President JFK's assassination on November 22nd 1963; worse still for Bobby Hebb personally, in the shadow of his brother's death in a knife fight outside a Nashville nightclub, just a day later on November 23rd.

Hal Hebb had been something of a mentor to his kid brother, and a singer himself with doo-woppers The Marigolds, who had a Top Ten U.S R&B hit in 1955 with “Rollin’ Stone” (Hal sings tenor).

Bobby told the story of how he came to write 'Sunny' in a TV interview with US TV host Joe Viglione in August 1995...

“I find it more psychological the way I was thinking…it’s your disposition…you need a lift, an up, that’s all. Sometimes everyone needs an up. So “Sunny”, to me, is that disposition, you need a Sunny disposition to get away from whatever, just as I said before, “amuse me”, “make me forget what I just saw man”, “I don’t wanna know, I know I have to know, but I don’t know how to deal with it right now. I will deal with it, I’m not running away from this.  I just need a break.

So this was the idea behind “Sunny” – (it) was (to) give me a brighter idea so that my emotions will not be as disturbed as they are. I need a calmer feeling so that I can balance myself and adjust and then continue forward, onward.”

Bobby died in 2010 - on August 3rd. So it turns out I was playing his song and reading about all this just a few days after the anniversary of his passing...

Bobby Hebb - 'Sunny' (1966)

In The Beauty Of The Night

A funny thing happened on the night of my birthday, this Wednesday, as we were waiting for our food to come at the Chinese restaurant.

I felt I needed some air, and told the girls I had to get outside for a minute. Then, leaning on a bike rack on the pavement out front, I collapsed, and couldn't be roused.

And the next thing I knew there was a paramedic, then an ambulance, by which time I was conscious, telling them I was OK, telling them no, I didn't want to be taken to the hospital, thanks; but they said my blood pressure was very low and gave me a ECG just in case (all fine) and took us home in the back of the ambulance.

And the worst of it was, I never got to eat my sizzling Szechuan prawns.

So we approach the age where this sort of thing happens?

Er...perhaps just a few quiet beers tonight, then. 

On which note...here's a lovely tune from a birthday prezzie record about having a mellow night in with someone special and your 'favourite LP' (thanks for the tip to @so_mark off of Twitter - like W.W above, that boy can wear a hat).

Cheers! *tries to stay upright*

Willie Wright - 'In The Beauty Of The Night' (1977)

Yeah Baby

Loved this story about the archiving of Afrika Bambaataa's 40,000-strong record collection by Cornell University.

They had me from 'a dog-eared and dusty copy of the Shaft in Africa soundtrack' (para one)...

Johnny Pate - 'Shaft In Africa (Addis)' (1973)

A Touch Of The Balearics

I'm a 31C sort of guy if ever there was one so you won't catch me whingeing about this weather. Although I do wish we lived nearer a beach ('Aye, you can take the boy out of Devon but you can't...' etc).

I actually heard Jon Sa Trincha play this track at Salinas Beach in Ibiza, back when I had money (well, a debt-inducingly stupid limit on the credit card, at least) and the girls were small enough to smuggle on to aeroplanes free (hand luggage). I spent my 38th birthday at the bar there with them, quaffing cold San Miguel and throwing back battered calamari whilst back at the villa Mrs H did battle with the food poisoning she'd acquired from dodgy mussels at Cala D'Hort.

There's a swell mix of Jon's here if you're that way inclined. It very authentically captures his 'sound', I think.

School's out for summer!
 
I do hope that in due course someone will be going to the bar?

Funk For Sale - 'Ocean Games (remix)' (2002)

Drew

This is, as I have tweeted, spine tingling.

Who'd have thought something so sensual and haunting could be made about a blogger from Lanark?

Looking For The Maximum

As the radio silence round here may have suggested, this week's been a bit full-on.

But never mind that now, innit - I have six plump Portobello limes downstairs in a bowl, a big tray of ice in the fridge and Mr Tanqueray, he comin' out to play.

This is a groove.

Cerrone feat. Jocelyn Brown - 'Hooked On You (Kon's Nite Time Remix)' (2012)

Yeah Baby

I have this terrific mix to thank for introducing me to the Jackson 5 outtake that was 'My Jam' (!) last week. What a track. Song by Stevie Wonder - again.

New York City was hot. Music in the cafés at night and fountains in Washington Square.

I kept my promise to myself; I bought a litre of Tanqueray duty free.

The Jackson 5 - 'Buttercup' (1973)

Golden Lady

I'm off back to New York tomorrow.

I know - yawn. It's like it's become the new Zone 17 on my Oyster Card, right?

So I won't blether on about that.

What I'll say, as I have before, is that every time at 99p Soul there's one song - that, in the moment and of itself, is the...moment. 

And this time it was this. Very, very gloriously.
 
Thank you Emma x

Stevie Wonder - 'Golden Lady' (1973)

PS: Those of you not Twittering may have missed this, too...

Stevie Wonder - 'Golden Lady (Scrimshire Edit)' (2013)

(follow @scrimshire)

PPS: I am planning to bring back some duty free Tanqueray: see you Friday companeros x

Yeah Baby

I shall be uncoolly Dad-dancing to the sensational soul sounds of the celebrated Misters Rob Ryan, Mick Beirne and our very own Ms Dusty Sevens at 99p Soul tomorrow night.

Here's something glorious in anticipation and for all those of you unfortunate enough not to live within a nightbus ride's distance of London's premier budget basement event for the mature soul freak.

I shall require a beverage.

Almeta Lattimore - 'These Memories' (1975)

We're Doing Fine

Lately I've found I've more consistently liked the music Paul Weller recommends (in interviews and so on) than the music Paul Weller makes.

I was flicking through the end of 2012 review in an old Mojo the other night and saw he mentioned this in his 'Best Thing I've Heard All Year' list.....'She's Dionne's sister, and it starts off as this great guitar song - it could be The Lovin' Spoonful - before it turns into this amazing soul tune'.

He's right you know.

Dee Dee Warwick - 'We're Doing Fine' (1965)

There's also a 'BBC Session' version by Dusty.

Back To Living Again

Hola companeros, it has been one hell of a fortnight hereabouts.

I do hope someone is going to the bar.

Curtis Mayfield - 'Back To Living Again' (1997)

Dad

It says '1952' on the back, so he'll have been 29. Just a couple of years after this.

My Dad died this morning, sometime between 8 and 9am, in his room, in his care home, eighteen hours or so after Mum's last visit...

"I said to him, 'Do you know who I am?' and he looked at me like I was daft,

'Of course I know who you are'

'Well, who am I then?'

'You're you'..."

He didn't believe in 'heroes', but he was mine.

We will miss him very much.

[Blog 'closed' for a bit].

Hide Your Face From Searching Eyes

I danced around the Durutti Column (not actually a pagan rite) for donkey's - knowing the FAC history, borrowing and taping LPs from the library and loving single tracks on comps and so on, but it was a big and daunting body of work I only really plunged properly into five years or so back, and I still have lots more of it to explore.

Sunlight To Blue...Blue To Blackness, a late, post-Anthony H. Wilson album soaked through with mourning for him I downloaded via some emusic package, offered up so many brilliant things; this I've already blogged, and 'Demo For Gathering Dust', a dark and lovely flamenco I've played over and over these past years but only this week found in vocal form on the album before.

Vini, who has had the roughest time of it recently, must be both the greatest and most criminally undersung guitar player of our time - though not by those who know - amongst them Johnny Marr and, as I found out today when I was about to post this, Roddy Frame, who tweeted...

"When I was 15/16 I tried to play guitar like Vini Reilly..."



The Durutti Column website is here.

The Durutti Column - 'Demo For Gathering Dust' (2008)
The Durutti Column - 'Gathering Dust' (2007)

The Smiling Hour

I posted this six years ago - but all old people repeat themselves.

And it's one of Glo's favourites. 

Chin chin companeros.

Dean Martin - 'Little Ole Wine Drinker, Me' (1967)

Yeah Baby

This cracker from ye olde Vinyl District freebie shuffled up on the iPo the other day as the sun burst through bruise-coloured clouds: bluesy, blousy and blowy,  it's a surefire Friday choon.

I am home. It's not late. I shall require a beverage, oh yeah.

Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings - 'I'll Still Be True' (2010)

In A Sentimental Mood

This is a song Mrs H always asks me to play when she's in her cups a sentimental mood.

It's a pretty thing, as Bing Crosby might say.

I only really listened to the lyrics properly the other day.

And when I looked it up found that they were written by one Felice Mancini, and set to music by her very great and famous composer Dad.

Sometimes, not often enough
We reflect upon the good things
And those thoughts always centre around those we love
 
And I think about those people who mean so much to me
And for so many years have made me so very happy
And I count the times I have forgotten to say "thank you"
 
And just how much I love them

Carpenters - 'Sometimes' (1971)

Tuesday (!) Reggae

Yes, unorthodox I know, but I'm seizing the day with this because a) it's a great record and I want to share it with you and b) I am, shockingly, going to be late back from selling the snake-oil in town on Friday and so likely slinging that post together in an even more slapdash fashion than usual, and this warrants a tad more attention.

It leapt out at me from this Soundcloud of reggae choons from the 'classic' era - some cut/crunched together a bit too rapidly for my liking, but I get the vibe - and I'd never heard it before.

It sounds like an old Studio One production pure and simple but is, according to the nice people at this site, a bit of a mongrel - an unreleased late 60s riddim track by The Soul Vendors, backing a vocal group called The Saints and harmonies by The Silvertones, with a lead vocal added in 1999 when the whole thing was re-engineered in Jamaica (by Courtney Dodd) and mixed in Brooklyn, NY. 

Like say, it's very good indeed.

Nina Soul - 'Sleeping Trees' (1999 - kind of)

Float, Float On

It was back from over there, rest up and Bank Holiday car-booting and straight into stuff over here and I've only just come up for air now really, so sorry to have been so quiet, though being quiet seems to be the new norm around here; I blame that Twitter. There's a navel-gazing post to be writ I'm sure about Whatever Happened To (Noodly) Music Blogs, with so many having fallen by the wayside, but some other feller or lass can write it, if that's alright.

I'll have a large Tanqueray over crushed ice, chunk of lime, tonic and some classic Balearica, ta.

The Grid - 'Floatation (Subsonic Grid Mix)' (1990)

Old Lag

Where am I? What time is it? Where'd all the big yellow taxis go? Wha_?

Odyssey - 'Native New Yorker' (1977)

Manhattan Project

I'm off to sell more snake oil in New York City tomorrow dear hearts. It'll be a whistle stop visit - in and work the schtick and out again - no opps for late night gigs or partays. I might get to wander about town for an hour or so tomorrow p.m, all dazed and out of time. And the views are quite nice and the Brooklyn Brewery's range is growing on me.

Back Friday morning via the red-eye. Bleary and teary.

Will Tweet!

Hey. Whaddyagonnado.

Simon & Garfunkel - 'The Only Living Boy In New York' (1970)

Now

18th April 2013 To Dexys at the Duke Of York's Theatre in London's glittering West End...

Pre-show pints with @so_mark off of that Twitter and his lovely wife, then...

Act I - One Day I'm Going To Soar: The Complete Work: with passion, bite, tightness, swooning, crooning and several costume changes (Kev). Our 'hero' (?) dreams of, meets, wins, kisses and is inca- inca- incapable of loving The Woman - but it's OK John Joe, he's Free.

Ovation.

Act II (no-one now is sitting down) - 'some old favourites' extend our tale: 'Don't stand me down, for I'll never stop saying your name' and 'You were standing next to me in 82 and 83' and 'Academic inspiration? To be honest Geno you gave me fuck all' and the confession of a crime ('I was burning, burning burning') that took place 'From 1966 to 1993', Until I Believe In My Soul, Tell Me When My Light Turns Green because This Is What She's Like (mammoth mix) - by now your blogger is out of Stall N9 and down front Stage Right testifying - or was that Kevin, or was that us all?

Ovation, ovation, ovation.

And me wanting to write something now about the Redemptive Power of Art (sorry).

The Italians have a word for it. A thunderbolt or something. I don't speak Italian myself you understand. But I knew a man who did.

Dexys Midnight Runners - 'Listen To This' (1985)

Yeah Baby

Gil Scott-Heron - 'Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)' (1981)

Soul Saturday

Drew sent me off on a search for more Gloria (Ann) Taylor when he posted 'Love Is A Hurting Thing', a brilliant, brilliant tune from an EP I learn is infamously rare and hugely desired by the hipsters.

I found this, which could almost be a Martha & Vandellas single (it's good enough) were it not for a quality in the production (that psych guitar!) that sends it ever so slightly off-kilter in the best of all possible ways.

Gloria Taylor - 'Total Disaster' (1971)

A vinyl rip! (though sadly not mine).

Brother To Brother

Graham and me (and my toy cat), 1965

It has been a week off but cold and made colder by the passing of a brother, my brother, on Monday. I didn't think I would write about it here but it feels dishonest not to. We were not 'close'; he was seventeen when I was born, until then the youngest of three and he always said the smell of nappies made him leave home and follow our eldest brother into the Navy. I think he was only half-joking; replaced as the 'baby' by a real one, me. He was kind and funny and life-loving but the life-loving took its toll and now they are telling us too he had motor neurone disease - in hospital for months and in the last few weeks unable to eat, drink, swallow. There is no cure, so I suppose it is a fact that his death was a 'release'.

We were not close, he was seventeen when I was born; we didn't grow up together.

But he was funny and kind and life-loving and he was my big baby brother.

Sleep tight Gray x

The Searchers - 'Needles & Pins' (1964)

Thursday: The New Friday

Right, that's it - I'm wrapped for at least a week and it's chocolate and telly and cosy toasts to the goddess Ēostre all the way.

Been listening to a lot of jazzy hip-hop of late.

I'm old skool, I'm dope. 

Cheers.

Eric B. & Rakim - 'Don't Sweat The Technique' (1992)