My music history edit
- I grew up in the leafy suburbs of Liverpool, England, in the 1950s and 1960s. So, as a child I listened to pop music on the radio - the first record I remember loving was Rosemary Clooney's "This Ole House". Music wasn't a particularly central part of my life - shamefully, I never learned an instrument - though I gradually acquired a small collection of Lonnie Donegan 78s and, later, instrumental 45s by The Shadows and others. In the early 1960s I took a casual interest in local bands who made good, like The Beatles and The Undertakers (my dad was apparently their bank manager for a time), but I certainly never bothered going to see them even though they played locally - I was probably still a bit too young anyway. I was more interested in the pop music coming out of the US - including high quality music that I've loved ever since, from the likes of Dion and (a little later) The Shangri-Las.
- This all changed in the mid to late 1960s, when Radio Caroline and Radio Luxembourg were in full swing, and my friends and peers started listening to records by people like Bob Dylan. I developed a taste for the more obscure and psychedelic artists and styles, and started buying albums and singles, such as Pink Floyd's "Arnold Layne", Vanilla Fudge, The United States of America, Jefferson Airplane's After Bathing at Baxter's, and Captain Beefheart's Safe As Milk. And I started reading all the British music weeklies (when I could afford them), and listening to John Peel. My special affection, at the age of 16 or so, went to The Incredible String Band and (more embarrassingly, in hindsight) the early acoustic Marc Bolan. One of my first concerts was to see Tyrannosaurus Rex in Liverpool, with a mime artist called David Bowie as one of the supporting acts...
- By the time I had become a university student, I was acquiring - largely from Selectadisc in Nottingham - a reasonably wide library of psychedelic and "progressive" music - including the peerless Forever Changes by Love - and had become a particular fan of The Velvet Underground and its offshoots. (Somewhere, I still have an unpeeled banana...) For a while, my favourite album was Nico's The Marble Index. I also (this was the early to mid 1970s) started going to more concerts - the most memorable of many being Captain Beefheart in (I think) 1972. Unforgettable, and still probably my best ever gig... Another memorable moment was when a friend had me listen to Marvin Gaye's What's Going On - one of the few records where I can remember exactly where I was when I first heard it. Before then, I had played little attention to soul music, or R&B - I liked some of it, but it hadn't particularly engaged me. But, that moment was the start of a long and gradual initiation into the joys (and pain) of black American music.
- I was still expanding and broadening my musical interests, and one singer/songwriter I discovered in the mid-1970s struck a special chord - Tom Rapp of Pearls Before Swine, all of whose (pretty obscure, but wonderful) albums I managed to acquire on import. Years later, in the early 1990s and having no idea if Rapp was alive or dead, I made my first venture online, and discovered to my amazement that he had his own website. Within half an hour, I had emailed him, and, astonishingly, within literally a few minutes, had a personal email back from the man himself. I was impressed...
- By 1976 I was working in a proper grown-up job, and listening to both new and old music. I loved punk from the moment it began - I was the first person in Exeter, Devon, to buy a record by the Sex Pistols.
Me: "Have you got this new record, "Anarchy in the UK", it came out yesterday?"
Bloke in The Left Bank, Paris Street: "No, never heard of it.. oh wait, it might be in this new box that just came in... yes, here it is...."
- So, that was the start of many trips to record shops to buy the latest punk singles - and the development of a special regard for Jonathan Richman, the Ramones and Talking Heads in particular. (Saw The Clash a few times live - they were pretty rubbish really.) Around this time, as well, my esteem for various Canadians started rising - Neil Young, Leonard Cohen, and, above all, Joni Mitchell - particularly The Hissing of Summer Lawns and Hejira, still very high among my favourite and best loved albums. And I was going to pubs and clubs to listen to R&B bar bands, and discovering the music of Howlin' Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson II, John Lee Hooker and the rest.
- In the 1980s my favourite current band became New Order (almost in spite of their lyrics. And the singing.) I was getting more into soul and R&B music - a particular favourite was Millie Jackson, and I was no stranger to the delights of disco music. And I loved some "world music" - an old album of middle eastern music by John Berberian, and people like Salif Keita. Bits of jazz as well - Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Joe Harriott. At the same time, my latent folkie strain, which had encompassed Steeleye Span and Richard Thompson - not to mention such singer-songwriters as Laura Nyro, Tim Hardin and Dory Previn - emerged with a complete love of The Storm by Moving Hearts. And many of those elements coalesced neatly in Was (Not Was) and Kid Creole and the Coconuts.
- Since that time, I've gradually developed more of a love for, interest in, the development of what I can call black American music from the 1920s or so, up to the late 1970s. Partly to blame was a fascinating book, What Was The First Rock'n'Roll Record, by Dawson and Propes, which led to me "discovering" Cab Calloway, Louis Jordan, Sonny Boy Williamson and many others. My awareness and knowledge of soul music - both northern soul and southern soul - keeps on developing. I was once lucky enough, on a tourist trip to Memphis, to (almost literally) bump into, and shake the hand of, the legendary Rufus Thomas.
- And always, at the same time, I've kept on discovering new music - or, music new to me. Twenty years ago, I probably had no records by Nina Simone - now, she takes up a fair chunk of my iPod. And, around the same time as I "discovered" her, a friend introduced me to the wonderful and (to an Anglophone audience) completely unknown French music of Arthur H and Lo'Jo. Belatedly, I found Curtis Mayfield and Mary Margaret O'Hara. And I got to see both Neil Young and Leonard Cohen in concert.
- New music often disappoints - it's just not as good as the old stuff. Some exceptions... The wonderful, marvellous, Cat Power, with whom I am in love with a rare passion. The Beauty Shop - excellent, obscure, but now sadly defunct. The brilliant Sufjan Stevens. The White Stripes and Arctic Monkeys are really pretty good as well, as is the charming Alela Diane. And, of modern obscurities, Gotye, a Belgian-Australian singing drummer (what else..). [Not obscure now though. Shame the album with the hit on it isn't half as good as the album before that......]
Taking up most space on my iPod (as at April 2015) edit
- Joni Mitchell (1)
- Leonard Cohen (12)
- Jonathan Richman / The Modern Lovers (7)
- Marvin Gaye (4)
- Nina Simone (5)
- Cat Power (2)
- Arthur H (3)
- Tom Rapp / Pearls Before Swine (6)
- Lo'Jo (8)
- Curtis Mayfield (10)
- Love (13)
- The Fall (-)
- Neil Young (16)
- The Incredible String Band (18)
- Millie Jackson (20)
- Captain Beefheart (19)
- The Beauty Shop (9)
- Laura Nyro (24)
- Dion (25)
- John Berberian (-)
- Roky Erickson / The 13th Floor Elevators (-)
- Ann Peebles (-)
- Jefferson Airplane (27)
- Diana Ross / The Supremes (22)
- The Marvelettes (-)
- King Tubby (28)
- Sufjan Stevens (11)
- Calexico (-)
- The Velvet Underground (17)
- Talk Talk (-)
(2012 in brackets)
Favourite tracks of ten minutes or longer edit
- Nina Simone - Sinnerman
- Millie Jackson - (If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don't Want To Be Right
- Velvet Underground - Sister Ray
- Neil Young - Cowgirl In The Sand
- Moving Hearts - The Lark
- Bob Dylan - Desolation Row
- John Coltrane - A Love Supreme
- Terry Riley - A Rainbow In Curved Air
Favourite tracks of two minutes or less edit
- Ray Charles - Hit The Road Jack
- Johnny Cash - Guess Things Happen That Way
- Tim Hardin - Lady Came From Baltimore
- The Ramones - Cretin Hop
- The Box Tops - The Letter
- Sonny Boy Williamson II - Checkin' Up On My Baby
- Freddie Cannon - Palisades Park
- Jonathan Richman - New Teller
- The Residents - Bach Is Dead
- Cat Power - New York
Favourite tracks by women soul singers (loosely defined!) edit
- (Jimmy and) Louise Tig - A Love That Never Grows Cold
- Ann Peebles - I'm Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down
- Irma Thomas - Anyone Who Knows What Love Is (Will Understand)
- Margie Alexander - Can I Be Your Main Thing
- Hattie Littles - Love, Trouble, Heartache and Misery
- Jaibi - What Good Am I?
- Tammi Terrell - All I Do Is Think About You
- Bessie Banks - Go Now
- Etta James - I'd Rather Go Blind
- Bettye Lavette - Let Me Down Easy
- Millie Jackson - Leftovers
- Mary Love - Lay This Burden Down
- The Marvelettes - The Hunter Gets Captured By The Game
- Brendetta Davis - I Can't Make It Without Him
My changing musical tastes edit
Sadly, I used to record my changing tastes in albums. Compilations not included. Here is a summary.