Lightfooted

I didn't even know this existed until the other day when I found it on the YouTube.

It's from, of all things, a Valentines Day CD sold in Starbucks last year.

And since at the moment it couldn't get much gloomier here weather-wise, it'll do more than nicely.

Richard Hawley - 'Early Morning Rain' (2009)

The Smiling Hour

Ah, look at what the cat dragged in; I was wondering where you'd got to. Here, I kept you a seat. Still raining outside is it? Nice weather for ducks eh? That's the summer well and truly over then.

So anyway.

What can I get you?

Drop of the usual?

US3 - 'Cantaloupe (Flip Fantasia)' (1993)

New Music Monday

They're fine young fellows from Oxfordshire! They sing songs about conkers shining on the ground! One of them plays the trumpet! Hurrah!

Song was here*

More here.

*I've had a copyright infringement notice on this one via Box Net, and a revert to draft via Blogger too, so the file's removed (5th Oct). Sorry folks.

Yeah Baby

Nina Simone - 'Funkier Than A Mosquito's Tweeter' (1974)

And that's funky as in 'pungent', we should say.

I Would Be In Love Anyway

I have more Frank Sinatra records than anyone I know, but I didn't have this until Monday - even though it's been months since Her Allyness posted one of these songs (and longer still since she first mentioned the LP). It came up on the iPo in a quiet moment the other day when Mrs H was sitting listening and she said 'I've never heard that before. That's lovely' - which reminded me that indeed it was, and sent me, finally, off up the Amazon, and here we are.

The album's narrated by a smalltown guy whose wife has left him and their two boys (Michael & Peter) and taken off on a train for the big city - we're not told why; there's a suggestion he may be to blame. The songs, by Jake Holmes and Bob 'Four Seasons' Gaudio, are a 'series of brief lyrical snapshots that read like letters or soliloquies' (AllMusic); it is the ordinariness of the subject matter that really breaks your heart.

There's an academic interpretation of the album as an allegory for Sinatra's relationship with his recording audience - that by 1969 he was seen as a tired old Vegas-based Greatest Hits machine, out of touch with the Woodstock times, that they had left him and he wondered if he'd ever get them back again. Well, that's interesting, but I'm not sure I buy it: Sinatra was still a huge recording star at the end of the 60s - '69 had been the year of 'My Way', after all.

No. Me, I'm hearing it as an extension of 'A Man Alone' and a reference right back to what the other side of the ring-a-ding-ding Frank had always been doing - singing songs for and of the lonely, baby.

Belated thanks A x

Frank Sinatra - 'Michael & Peter' (1970)
Frank Sinatra - 'What A Funny Girl (You Used To Be)' (1970)

Meanwhile...

Yeah Baby

Summer's bitten the big one and it's dull as all heckfire out there; I'm stone cold broke into the bargain and there ain't no payday coming soon.

But Friday is Friday companeros - and like the lady once said, this here's funkier'n a mosquito's tweeter.

Break!

Gene Harris & The Three Sounds - 'Your Love Is Just Too Much' (1971)

Everything

In celebration of our inter-connectedness, yeah baby.

Donny Hathaway - 'Voices Inside (Everything Is Everything)' (1970)

Pulsing

We could run a competition on how best to describe the bassline on this one; I'm going for 'urgent and pulsing'. It's sure cutting through the gloom today.

James Carr - 'That's What I Want To Know' (1967)

Cracking!

Punching car radio buttons in despair as we hit the last few miles of our mega-trek home from hols last Sunday it was a surprise and delight to happen upon a Bank Holiday Northern Soul Special on, of all things, the usually unlistenable Smooth FM.

I was reminded of just how brilliant this is; it's our heartstarter for the week.

Roy Hamilton - 'Crackin' Up Over You' (1966)

The Smiling Hour

"We feel sorry for people that don't drink; when they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're gonna feel all day" - Frank Sinatra.

Salute!

Dean Martin - 'Ain't That A Kick In The Head' (1960)

Here Again (Traditional)

 David Sylvian - 'September' (1987)

Memo To Self

Rouse yourself davyh, rouse yourself: you've a load of work to do this week and a charity cycle ride on Sunday and with a brain like stinky soft French cheese and a waistline impacted by same, plus all that Bergerac Rosé, you've much to do to get 'match fit'.

You can start by posting that Midlake song that sounded so good as you swept up the autoroute and make sure you don't fall by the blog wayside as so many around you appear to have done of late: was it all those threats from The Man or did they just get bored? Keep on keepin' on my boy, for autumn's coming and splendid things shall lie ahead if you just believe it, yeah baby.

Midlake - 'Head Home' (2008)

En Vacances

Mais oui et alors mes amis, the Famille H are off on their hols to South West France and hoping that the 40% chance of rain forecast for next week is an erreur; for heading South will be sweeter if to a warmer, sunnier place. Either way we are banking on groovy cheeses and groovier wine, fresh baked bread and some cheap gin from the hypermarket - and we've loved doing the London things this summer, but we also need to breathe some green, you know?

It's an early start and a long drive tomorrow, all frites by the autoroute and petit cafes to keep me awake, so don't make me stay up late tonight gassing away with you.

There's half a melon in the fridge if you want to use it up.

Salut!

Manfred Mann's Earth Band - 'Davy's On The Road Again' (1978)

Busking It

Our internets have been broken all day and Busby's only just fixed them. I should think all of Mrs H's crops in Farmville have died, and you can forget all about that erudite morning post I planned (I know I have). We best busk it, eh Ted? 

Ted Hawkins - 'He Will Break Your Heart' (1985) Jerry Butler!

Caught Up In This Big Rhythm

It's been rain/sun/rain/sun/rain here all week: off with the girlies, on the 'sun' days we did the Albert Memorial, red pavilion and Princess Di playground in Kensington Gardens, a parched Wimbledon Common/Cannizaro Park and light refreshments at The Hand In Hand, and squeezed in a pub lunch by the river today - low tide, drizzle-pitted Thames, herons and cormorants.

Tinseltown Is In The Rain.

I found this LP in the charity shop in the spring - already had the music, bought it anyway, it was such a nice thing. It has, on reflection, been a good year so far for vinyl finds in places whiffing of mothballs.

Chin Chin my lovelies.

The Blue Nile - 'Tinseltown In The Rain' (1984)

Zing!

Sitting reading last night and listening to the Blackpool Mecca comp, I was struck by just how terrific this is. It sounds so mid 70s Philly (and was a hit in '75), but it was recorded in 1971.

It's the kind of thing that's playing on those hot summer nights by the beach in the perfect August of my imagination.

The Trammps - 'Hold Back The Night' (1972)

It's Disco! With Guitars!

Your vote is well-hung.

Last For Long

So as I mentioned the other day to Simon, right after him posting about this feller and long, long since various people whose musical opinions I dig first blethered on at me about this record, I found it in my local charity shop for a quid, and bought it.

Would those of you who know it describe it as a grower?

I mean, it's dark and moody and complicated and sometimes a bit unexpected isn't it?

My first reaction is some of the tracks are walking dark funky paths in search of a tune, a bit.

I will stick with it, because I like unobviousness.

This (track one!) I think is superb. I'm sort of obsessed with it at the moment.

Lewis Taylor - 'Lucky' (1996)

First Be A Person Who Needs People

Jule Styne (music) (1905-1994) also wrote 'Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend', 'Everything's Coming Up Roses' and 'Saturday Night (Is The Loneliest Night Of The Week)'.

Bob Merrill (lyrics) (1929-1998) also wrote (ahem) 'She Wears Red Feathers (And A Huly Huly Skirt)' - which my Mum introduced me to long, long after its time, on a 7" single they'd kept since the 50s. Thanks Mum!

----

For Mondo, and Mondo's Mum.

Barbra Streisand - 'People' (1964)

The Smiling Hour

Ach yes, on the face of it this isn't so Friday night, but I reckon if you and your cocktails are chilled it could stack up very nicely.

And I'm 45 tomorrow; so like Lee once said (in so many words) I'm old enough not to have to Justify My Music to anyone.

Yeah baby - I *heart* Sade!

Which I do not think is hard to do with this lovely, lovely, slow-jam bassy thing.

Cheers!

Sade - 'Lovers Rock' (2000)

Sweet Sounds Of Summer

Here's something else I've been enjoying from my Big Summer Playlist 2010 (cunningly formed in iTunes by selecting all songs with 'summer' in the title - brilliant!).

This was written by The Shangs' personal manager Larry Martire, about whom I know nothing, sadly.

Say life’s a game and it hurries by so fast
And if you find someone to love, do your best to make it last
We were too young and the summer's come and gone
Until the time we meet again the memory lingers on

The Shangri-Las - 'The Sweet Sounds Of Summer' (1966)

Schhh...

Yessir.

Short Term

A bit of an emotional day for us today: the girlies break up for the summer hols and the eldest leaves her (lovely) primary school for good.

*gulp*

It's a cliché but true: it seems like only yesterday we first walked her through the gates, a late August birthday girl just 4 years old, the youngest in the class, the youngest in the school; a photo of her standing in front of the house in her bright new uniform.

Today she'll come home (considerably taller) with a hundred farewell signatures scribbled in biro on her shirt and a trace of a tear in her eye, though trying not to show it.

As Big School looms...

Black Box Recorder - 'The School Song' (2003)

Summer Making Sense

Continuing a sort of series of seasonal songs with a track you hear once and feel you've known all your life - another one that's been buzzing about my head lately like a housefly trapped inside on a hot summer's day.

With thanks to Drew, who first introduced us (*cough* nothing original to see here, move along).

The Airborne Toxic Event - 'The Girls In Their Summer Dresses' (2006)

Friday Reggae # 16

We're off to an end-of-school-year parents' social tonight, which is really not my sort of thing; I would much rather be at home getting myself outside of a bottle of vino with Mrs H whilst the girlies play out front and groovy sounds emanate from my gramophone.

Oh. I've just read on the 'confirmation email' that facilities at the venue exist to plug iPods into speakers, so maybe that'll keep me amused for the evening.

Perhaps it'll be like those 6th Form parties where you were forever taking off some fool's rubbish records to put your Tamla Motown on.

It'll end in tears.

Judy Mowatt - 'Emergency Call' (1974)

(I HEART this track!).

Bored Of The Flies

Is it me or are there an awful lot of flies about this year? Maybe it's because of all that hot weather and then the rain this week, but I can't lift a bloody banana in our house without disturbing hundreds of what Mrs H assures me are Drosophila, and last night walking home from the station in broad daylight, after I had already ducked great swirly clouds of gnats through the woods, some little blighter that looked like a small moth landed on my finger and bit it hard, right then and there as bold as brass. Tonight I hung up some seeds for the birds in our thorn tree and disturbed a major settlement of the buggers.

Anyway.

This has been lurking for a bit too - you'll see from the title nestling in the Wey post it's been on my mind for a while; and I am never one to ignore these clues/cues.

Now where's the witchhazel...

Tim Buckley - 'Buzzin' Fly' (1969)

Celebrated Summer

I kind of like Hüsker Dü without having much of their stuff - Candy Apple Grey, a few downloads and, if they count, a tape of a dark Bob Mould solo album and that splendid Sugar single.

I don't have any Red House Painters either, but this Mark Kozelek cover, which came to me in 2008 from a terrific, zeitgeisty zip from a much-missed Weegie blogger with a fringe*, has been on heavy rotation in my house and in my head this past week.

The Dü's Mould is famously one of those guys who has both a natural gift for melody and a contrasting penchant for thrashy noise - when the two come together well, as they do here, it is quite something; Kozelek meanwhile strips out the second thing so we can luxuriate fully in the glory of the first, and hey, that's appreciated too.

Hüsker Dü - 'Celebrated Summer' (1985)

Mark Kozelek - 'Celebrated Summer' (2008)

* thanks Colin

Yeah Harriet

Indie Siren In London Heatwave Blogpost Shocker!

I Don't Need Sunny Skies

I loved this when I was little and I love it forty years later.

Only truly great pop songs go on giving in this way.

It was a demo too!

Carole King - 'It Might As Well Rain Until September' (1962)