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)