Friday Reggae # 15

And before you know it, a week's gone.

Ach, I quite enjoyed shutting up for a bit to be honest - popping round other people's places, loving a bit of hot weather early in the week and beyond that just keeping the head down and bringing home the (veggie) bacon, you know how it goes.

I wonder if there's a record fair on somewhere this weekend? I quite fancy a record fair.

This popped up on the iPo en route to one in Chiswick a few weeks back, a sunny Saturday and the little cafes and veg shops bustling along Turnham Green Terrace, everything alright with the world.

It is rather fine and I commend it to the house.

Horace Andy & Ashley Beedle - 'Babylon You Lose' (2008)

Friday Reggae # 14

Because 25C is irie with me.

Sugar Minott - 'Good Thing Going' (1981)

Sunny Pop Song # 4

From the magnificent Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones LP, which I bought an old mono copy of donkey's years back, this song was written by the band's regular producer and ex-Turtle Chip Douglas, with Glaswegian songwriter Bill Martin (who - attention Eurovision trivialists! - also co-wrote 'Puppet On A String' and 'Congratulations').

Who was your favourite Monkee?

Mine was Mike Nesmith, hands down.

He's singing lead here.

The Monkees - 'The Door Into Summer' (1967)

Despatches

Pat - casual

I was pleased to find this priced so reasonably on Amazon Marketplace last week, but it is taking a bloomin' long time to arrive, I must say; possibly this is the fault of the Royal Mail who seem to have an especially casual approach to deliveries in our area - sometimes we don't get our 'morning' post until 3pm, and where's the point in that, eh? Sheesh. I may have to write a stern retired Colonel-type letter about it to the right-wing press.

Anyway, pending the lovely compilation and its lovely selection of a 25 lovely northern soul classics' final arrival and because, frankly, not much else is happening round here at the moment, here is one (cracker!) I was playing earlier.

Listen to the sound of the drummer
Thumpin' to the beat of my heart

The M.V.P.'s - 'Turnin' My Heartbeat Up' (1971)

The Smiling Hour

Funny since we were only talking about it in the pub last night that this should turn up today in the £1 bargain bin at Honest Jon's.

The gods of vinyl did smile down and the sun on Portobello did shine.

I got a large amount of baby plum tomatoes, two peppers, some aubergines and a big bunch of coriander too.

Gin!

Working Week - 'Who's Fooling Who?' (1985)

Soul Monday

I spent a fun hour or so last night watching clips of and about the Wigan Casino on YouTube (there are lots).

One was soundtracked by this, which is a beauty.

On vinyl it's one of those singles so rare it'll set you back a few hundred quid to buy.

So I'm thinking it's unlikely to turn up in my charity shop for 75p anytime soon.

Tan Geers - 'Let My Heart And Soul Be Free' (1968)

The Smiling Hour

Mancini, Nancy, gin.

Called for tonight more than ever.

Nancy Wilson - 'Moon River' (1963)

Exeunt

The sunny weather today reminded me of another, 13 years ago.

We took it off work and sat in the front garden, basking in the light and warmth and promise of a new beginning. The end of nearly twenty years of Tory rule, those bitter years of division and neglect and hectoring and despair. And we knew now things would change: a sweeping majority, a huge mandate; politics reshaped, a minimum wage, the NHS saved and remade, Education, Education, Education, ethics in our foreign policy, no more young British men and women sent to horrible deaths for spurious ends in unnecessary wars, a new society and a shared vision that re-united us as a people: Atlee in 45, Tony in 97 - dancing in the streets. Everyone smiling. Because this victory was ours.

----

So here's where the story ends.

Not with a bang, but a whimper.

: (

One That Got Away

It's no good you know.

I was so convinced that my return trip to the charity shop would be successful and that I'd pick this up on 7" that now I can't countenance posting anything else.

Not lovingly ripped from the vinyl.

Here's to one that got away.

Robert Knight - 'Love On A Mountain Top' (1973)

Brooklyn Bounty

Last week an exciting package arrived at my place from Daptone Records, Brooklyn, N.Y.C. courtesy companero Jon at The Vinyl District and one of his splendid vinyl giveaways.

It contained six Daptone 7" singles, a poster and a signed ("Love ya!") copy of the brand new Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings LP.

I was thrilled skinny with all this, and thought I'd share a tune from one of the singles with you here.

It's a reissue of an old Stax track from Darrell Banks (who's best known for the out-and-out solid gold Northern Soul classic 'Open The Doors To Your Heart'); a mid-tempo heartbreaker that's just right for midweek, baby.

Thanks again Jon and the groovy people at Daptone.

Darrell Banks - 'Don't Know What To Do' (1969)

Zhooshed

Something to go with our new look around here.

Well, it has been three and a half years...

Aretha Franklin - 'A Brand New Me' (1972)

The Smiling Hour

Sunshine, cocktails, Jobim by Oscar.

*sigh*

It's Friday at last.

Oscar Peterson - 'Wave' (1969)

Status Report

601 not out - but not about much either this week, to be honest, with an horrendously early start/late return train journey to Manchester tomorrow and more chocker 'away from my desk' mallarkey until sweet Friday, by which time I shall most certainly need a record-noodle up Portobello way and a gin & tonic, or two.

Like Tony says...

Tony Fruscella - 'I'll Be Seeing You' (1955)

PS: I'll Twitter any significant sandwich news.

Doo Wop That Thing (Again)

Recommended by Simon out of a post by Miss Ally which also inspired Darcy.

A record that must honestly be described as 'magnificent' that got here because we are all connected and so is as fine a thing I can think of for this blog's 600th post.

Thank you! I love you all!

The Dells - 'Stay In My Corner' (1965)

Tonight At Noon

Tonight at noon
Supermarkets will advertise 3p extra on everything
Tonight at noon
Children from happy families will be sent to live in a home
Elephants will tell each other human jokes
America will declare peace on Russia
World War I generals will sell poppies on the street on November 11th
The first daffodils of autumn will appear
When the leaves fall upwards to the trees

Tonight at noon
Pigeons will hunt cats through city backyards
Hitler will tell us to fight on the beaches and on the landing fields
A tunnel full of water will be built under Liverpool
Pigs will be sighted flying in formation over Woolton
And Nelson will not only get his eye back but his arm as well
White Americans will demonstrate for equal rights
In front of the Black house
And the monster has just created Dr. Frankenstein

Girls in bikinis are moonbathing
Folksongs are being sung by real folk
Art galleries are closed to people over 21
Poets get their poems in the Top 20
There's jobs for everybody and nobody wants them
In back alleys everywhere teenage lovers are kissing in broad daylight
In forgotten graveyards everywhere the dead will quietly bury the living

and

You will tell me you love me
Tonight at noon

- Adrian Henri

The Liverpool Scene - 'Tonight At Noon' (1967)*
The Jam - 'Tonight At Noon' (1977)

* featuring a little snippet of Perfumed Garden-era Peel at the end

Yeah Baby

It's been sunny, so I've got a rosado on the go.

Preparing for tomorrow
You do what you have to do

I would've posted earlier if it hadn't been for them pesky kids.

Curtis Mayfield - 'Give Me Your Love (Love Song)' (1972)

World Soft Championships (Brazil)

First there was this which was, and I don't use the word lightly, perfection (even the sleeve notes). So they decided to work together again, but the sessions only made one side of an album, a few more songs overspilling onto an 8-track cartridge that soon became unavailable.

I knew this one though from an early age - not because at 10 I was an obsessive collector of Sinatra rarities, but because it cropped up against all odds on a mid-70s mega-seller called A Portrait Of Sinatra, which the Aged Ps kept always near the front of their little row of LPs and which got a lot of spins on the radiogram, some of them by me.

My future with Frank was sealed.

Frank Sinatra (with Antônio Carlos Jobim) - 'Bonita' (1969)

Happy Hour (Brazil)

"Sarah Vaughan. Recorded in Brasil. Copacabana. A native Brasilian rhythm section. Brasilian singers. Brasilian sounds. Brasilian fire. Put them all together, blend well, add Helio Delmiro, Brasil's premier acoustic and electric guitarist, and you have another example of Sarah Vaughan's continuing love affair with Brasil.

If you can, fix a long, cold drink; sit back; imagine the waves rolling onto Copacabana, Leblon, or Ipanema beach; bask in the warmth of Rio; listen to Sarah; enjoy."

(original sleeve notes)

------

Thursday's the new Friday.

Break out the cocktails baby.

This is a very lovely thing.

Com amor x

Sarah Vaughan - 'The Smiling Hour (Abre Alas)' (1979)

Mood Piece

Feeling a little melancholy.

Only one thing to do - go with the mood.

Play a little Astrud.

Watch the rain.

Astrud Gilberto - 'A Certain Sadness' (1967)

Soul Friday

I guess that like last Friday's choon this might also be a contender for the 'covers that blow socks off' list, from the big fat bassline right on in (though the Sam Cooke'll always have a place in my heart).

The Stax sound baby, it never fades.

Play Loud.

Like you need me to tell you.

Eddie Floyd - 'Bring It On Home To Me' (1968)

Weather Report

Louis Armstrong - 'Didn't It Rain' (1958)

Season Cycle

Spring is here if I'm on my bike in Richmond Park, and yesterday I was.

Mind, it's not all green yet like it is in that picture, and of course I don't look 'professional' either.

But the air was fresh and the ground was stirring.

Keep those dogs on leads in designated areas, the skylarks are nesting.

(I've been listening to a lot of Courtney too).

Courtney Pine - 'Skylark' (1989)

Soul Friday

There is a strange mix of this on some Motown compilations that has that bad split-stereo thing going on and a distressingly prominent plonky piano coming out of the right-hand speaker - and children, it is wrong.

What we need is the full mono blast of the vinyl 45 and Levi Stubbs doing serious work on the song written by the Left Banke's 16 year-old keyboard player: surely a contender for your next 'cover versions that blow socks off the original' in-pub conversation.

So good it makes me cry!

The Four Tops - 'Walk Away Renee' (1967)

Alex Chilton (Dec 28 1950 – Mar 17 2010)

Like most people of my musical generation, I suppose, I came to him via the people he had inspired; they covered his songs, namechecked him in interviews, and because I liked them and trusted them, I sought his stuff out too. # 1 Record b/w Radio City on an early CD from Rhythm Records in Camden in the heat of Teenage Fanclub mania; Third after hearing 'Kangaroo' and 'Holocaust' on It'll End In Tears.

I didn't even make The Box Tops connection until quite recently. Wow.

What a bunch of work; what a powerful influence.

59 is - self-evidently - way too young to die.

RIP AC.

Big Star - 'Thirteen' (1972)
Big Star - 'Holocaust' (1974)
The Replacements - 'Alex Chilton' (1987)

Notes & Tones

Cover art: S.Neil Fujita

Yesterday in London felt like the first real day of spring; the sun didn't just shine, it was warm, and in EC1 I saw a woman sitting outside a cafe/bar sipping at a rosé wine.

I have all the windows open today.

And I've been going crazy for Mingus again; Ah Um. Truly great.

Charles Mingus - 'Goodbye Pork Pie Hat' (1959)

It's Cold Outside...

Hey! That's Billy Currie on keyboards!

Postscript: Glen Now

Yes, I'd have put 'Old Glen' but that sounds like the name of a sheepdog, or possibly an export Scotch whisky found in French supermarkets.

Anyway, this is very lovely. A Paul Westerberg song.

No cities in this one, move along.

Glen Campbell - 'Sadly Beautiful' (2008)

Cannons Flashing

I love everything about this recording; a great song of course (Jimmy Webb) - gorgeous melody, sparely evocative lyrics - but also a wonderful, soaring vocal, the playing of no less than the legendary Wrecking Crew, which included Campbell (that guitar solo two minutes in!), a sound that is the sea breeze and surf of that place he's left behind and all of his longing to be back there.

They quite genuinely don't make 'em like this any more, you know.

PS: The seafront at Galveston had a hard, hard battering from Hurricane Ike in 2008, by which time still more young men were cleaning their guns far from their loved ones, in invaded lands.

Interesting Artist - 'Great Song' (1969) (see below)

(12/03: Just had this 'returned to draft' and the Mediafire file deleted, so assume it's a copyright thang - have restored the post without the file: sheesh, you all already own it anyway. Ropey, but great, old video clip here).

(23/03: Brilliantly this has been 'taken down' AGAIN. even though there is no link here. So - I have now removed the words that identify the track. Call off the bots! Sheesh x 4).

Yeah Baby

Go careful with this - it's hot! from the tom-toms in.

Lee Fields And Sugarman & Co - 'Stand Up' (2009)

And You Try To Forget Your Past

I've been playing this over and over in the last few days. I really like it. It's from a synthy mid-80s album of his which is a mixed bag, but I've had it for years on this Beggar's Banquet sampler* that I bought in a junk shop in Wood St, Walthamstow when we were students in a flat above the chip shop.

John Cale - 'The Sleeper' (1985)

*I'm steering clear of some of the other things on it. Gene Loves Jezebel? You know I'm really not so sure.