Alan Wren, Stone Roses. The greatest drummer that ever walked the earth, prodigiously talented but hasn't done anything with it for nearly 20 years. What a dreadful waste.
It depends if you mean sales or critical aclaim. I am not sure about wrenie, he just bangs the drums and wants to be adored while the fools that are in the crowd got robbed of their gold while the lead singer is singing about islam and having a reserection.
Certainly a lot of the stone roses stuff had very good drum solos.
Cliff Richard is under appcreiated to a certain point, his earlier stuff was ground breaking he just didn't know when to quit and has become a bit of a joke because of it.
Not by grannies, but certainly by the media. When the story of British Rock Roll is told it often amazes me how Cliff is ignored. A lot of his new stuff is so awful it should be ilegal but there was nothing else in the UK which sounded like they did back in the late 50's.
An artist can sell millions and still be underappreciated. Other artists seem to have the balance just right, e.g Paul Simon.
I am actually finding it really hard to find an artist wich fits the description. There is a small Manchester band called Performance who have done a lot of the festivals over the past ten years they really should have broken out when the Killers did but some how never quite made it.
Alex Glasgow. As well as being musicaly brilliant the satire of The Candidate or Mary Baker City Mix are as relevant today as in their seventies setting.
Wichita Lineman is one of my fave ever tunes, he does a more updated version with Michelle Shocked on backing vocals. If I checked, it would probably be in the top 20 of my most played in itunes.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of what happened since and the failures of the BBC as seen by many, the Beeb delivered a peerless service that day, fronted in a large part by Sean Evans, their Business Correspondent who happened to be there when it happened.
I'm at work where we're blocked access to Youtube so having the artist's name in the post would be very helpful because if it's someone I've heard of, I can join in.
With no artist's name I'm excluded and I'll have to go back to doing some actual work.
Blossom Dearie was to my mind one of the great jazz singers but never quite made it to the super star status she richly deserved. Much admired by other singers though.
Ah...backup ! Thanks Cgn. I always enjoyed Blossom's voice.
I always thought she was the successor to Annette Hanshaw who was born in 1901 and managed 84 yrs. At the height of her fame in the jazz era.....the original ' flapper ' girl.
Plenty on YouTube.
Although my tastes are largely serious classical and opera, I do enjoy a lot of early jazz.
I've recorded stuff by Bessie Smith, Trixie Smith and Ma Rainey amongst others.
All atmospheric stuff.
When you've grown up, Rats, you'll appreciate proper, lasting music. very little of today's stuff will stay the course !
Anybody who knows anything about music will already be well aware of the work of Richard Thompson, though he still remains something of a cult figure. This is a clip of him with his son, Teddy; The video quality isn't good, but the harmonies are wonderful. www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3DS6xglAfQ
Last night was at a brilliant gig in Croydon with Jools Holland band
A very special guest was in my opinion the very under appreciated Ruby Turner -- what a voice and what a performer ....the whole audience were up and dancing , applauding , cheering for more .
Stacey Kent also does not get anything like the recognition she deserves - her singing is just brilliant.
Most of you have probably never heard of Ben Waters who in my opinion is the best boogy woogy piano player in the world - have a listen and marvel at his playing in this warm up session
>>Stacey Kent also does not get anything like the recognition she deserves - her singing is just brilliant.
Couldn't agree more. Humph was a fan, which reminds me that Helen Shapiro did some great stuff with the Lyttelton band, remember seeing them together at the Stables a few years ago. I still dig out the Humph'n'Helen CDs.
Totally agree about Stacey Kent - truly outstanding. Always includes Norwich in her UK tour and I try not to miss her appearances. Her husband Jim Tomlinson, who accompanies her is a great saxophonist. She has new album out 31 may
As a kid, I had an uncle who was self taught and used to liven up Christmas's playing boogie. I had the mandatory piano lessons when I was 9 but would love to be able to play like that - wonder how long it would take to learn? (I have recently acquired a full size electronic drum kit which is good fun)
Saw Jools & his Big Band at Edinburgh some years back, what a party that was...
Yea - When I met him at a gig last year Axel looked a bit like a 70's porn star with his moustache and wearing green shoes!
Axel is not quite up to Ben Waters in my opinion playing a more formal stride style to Bens belting boogy woogy. Ben is the only player I have ever seen whose hands become a blur as he plays - I sit open mouthed in amazement at the speed of his playing . He was actually moving the grand piano over the stage as he played .
I met Axel and Ben together with Charlie Watts of the Stones playing as the ABC of Boogy Woogy ( A = Axel , B = Ben and C = Charlie) , what a great gig that was .
Ben is just the nicest and funniest fellow you could hope to meet and actually played piano at Jools wedding ..... how good a recommendation is that ?
Watching those last few clips reminded me of a friend of mine, Hammy Howell, who played in a band in the 70s.
He could play all kind of styles but loved his boogy woogy. Sadly he died about ten years ago.
I've just found this clip of him that brings back so many memories.
"Catch him in concert if you can. " - already researched that - he's got a couple of dates not far from me in June/July.
I heard some blinding blues music at last year's Chicago Blues festival and afterwards as I trawled round Mississippi, and Tennessee etc but my "best ever live gig" was seeing the Stones at the Brixton Academy during the Stripped tour - it was announced on Capital at 08:00 on the Tuesday for the Wednesday night - you had to turn up at the HMV shop with readies in hand and could only buy one ticket per person. Small venue, less than 3000 people, famous Stones "friends" in the audience and you could just walk right up to the stage throughout the gig. I stayed about 8 standing rows back most of the time but the whole experience was absolutely awesome, never to be forgotten.
Hope you check him out Smokie. If you go to his gig Farnham Maltings its a bit crowded in the cellars there but a nice atmosphere. He will probably be on his own with just an electric piano. Some gigs he has guitar and drums and possibly a sax player with him. Depends on where he plays but if you get a chance to see him with the ABC of Boogy live do not miss it.
Did you get to Beale St in Memphis on your travels ?
Every sort of music venue from BB Kings club one end to guys just playing on the sidewalk.The house bands in the little clubs would be headliners over here.
I was in a fog of Jack Daniels in The Rum Boogie Cafe whilst listening to Billy Branch , a great Chicago harmonica player fighting against local players to outdo each other was quite a night ( and morning ) . I do remember he's a guy who knows how to play harmonica.....
Probably will see him at the Crooked Billet @ Henley.
Yes, I had three nights in Memphis, where I saw the most visually entertaining band of my trip - a rockabilly outfit called The Dempseys . I had 45 late afternoon minutes in Bourbon St and loved it - it was an unplanned stop, solely because I plan to visit for some time in the future and my schedule was already hectic.
I found great music in many places, and that was part of the purpose of the trip. The first (long) weekend was at the Chicago Blues Festival, where I spent Saturday afternoon listening to Nick Moss and the Fliptops in Buddy Guy's. They played a really strong set. Other places I went included Nashville, Jackson and of course Ground Zero in Clarksdale, MS. The Mississippi Blues Trail en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_Blues_Trail was one of my inspirations for the trip.
I'd love to spend more time there doing most of it again but a night in Henley will have to do for now!!
Have booked a table at the Crooked Billet to see Ben Waters on 6 July. They said they'd run part of it outdoors, weather permitting. Looking forward to it.
Purely accidentally, once saw a band called Winter at the Roundhouse, in the seventies I think. Two Texan brothers, the older brother playing alto sax but the big talent being Johnny, a skinny manic albino speedhead guitar player who could squeeze more clear distinct on-the-beat steel guitar notes into a second than one would believe possible, for a very long time too.
I always sneer when I hear these well-known, well-fed millionaire car collectors described as the world's greatest guitar players.
Thank you crocks... that does indeed give something of the flavour. I remember the playing as being more consistently crystalline (so to speak) at the Roundhouse gig, and a different lineup perhaps. But memory can be a bit unreliable on things like that.
Got tickets for the selfsame PU, sometime later this year in Reading. Seen Jools and his big band before at the Edinburgh Festival , it was a great night out. They were a bit expensive for Reading though, over £34 each!
I saw them last month in Croydon - Alison Moyet was good but Ruby Turner stole the show and the drum solo by Gilson Lavis was awesome ( see the link I posted above).
Did he have any other special guests PU? Sometimes he has the brilliant Ben Waters who I posted about above .
Chris Barber appeared at Croydon as a special surprise guest and still plays a pretty mean trombone for his age which must be near if not 80...
Ruby Turner was the other - very Blues....Rico Rodriguez was featured, I have to say that Mark Flanagan was a support act....good guitarist and singer, both the latter are members of the band though. Gilson's drum solo was pretty awsome...
I hope you enjoy the show smokie....The Crooked Billet looks a mighty fine venue.
I prefer Ben doing original boogy rather than the later rock stuff that he plays Chuck Berry / Jerry Lee style or his own stuff . He is very free and easy with his shows and will play what the audience asks for ....... - so shout out if you want a particular piece and he will probably do it .....
Oh and be prepared to sing along - in particular if he does Sister Susie - sitting in a shoe shine shop. It gets the audience going and is a great laugh.
I have been sitting typing this whilst listening to him on You Tube.
Well Ben Waters was really entertaining. It was not a heavy duty boogie show, but a good mix of songs you know (Chuck and Jerry Lee Lewis), some blues and a little boogie. And of course the comedy, including Sister Suzie.
The venue was fantastic, a pub in the middle of nowhere. The room held about 40 people and there was a £15 cover charge - and you are expected to eat something. Four of us spent just under £250 without too much trouble, which is a lot even for a Tuesday, but the food was excellent.
I have to admit at the weekend I was seriously contemplating leaving work early and driving up there to catch his show but its probably two hours each way and if he finished at 11 pm or so it would have been a bit too late a night.
He's not the greatest singer in the world but his piano playing is phenomenal and I do enjoy his comedy - I bet he did this one
Chocolate on my fingers, icing on my lips
Sugar diabetes and blubber on my hips
I keep the night light burning in the kitchen baby
So I can go downstairs and cruise
I got them oreo creme sandwich
Chocolate covered creme filled cookie blues
I hide'em in a cabinet, I keep'em in a jar
For emergency's you know I keep'em in the
Glove compartment of my car
And I can't live without'em
They git' me higher than I can get on booze
I got them oreo creme sandwich
Chocolate covered creme filled cookie blues
Doctor says I'm crazy
You better give'em up and quick
Or you'll be pushing up daisies because
Boy you definitely sick
I couldn't quit if I wanted to
Yeah I don't wanna lose
It's them oreo creme sandwich
Chocolate cover creme filled cookie
Built by nabisco, ain't no rookie
Next best thang to nookie blues
It does look like a nice pub as well ( if a bit pricey).
If you had saved up and spent as much as smokie and his mates did you could have bought a couple of houses up there as well......
Ah though the memories - I have not had a good Pie and Peas supper since my rugby playing days up there in the 60's but did buy and consume glorious fresh baked Scotch pies from the butcher in Bamburgh when I was last there ...
It looks a nice gastropub but certainly pricey by most London gastropub standards, and believe me I have dined in a lot of them. Looking at the menu its easy to see how you could rack up a fair old bill but its not as though they hide the 'extras' like some places.
I have to say that I'm not averse to paying well for good grub but the most I have paid in the recent past for SWMBO and myself was £120 on our 36th anniversary back in May and that was three courses and coffee in a restaurant with a Michelin starred chef , a decent bottle of wine , a glass of an excellent dessert wine ,two glasses of champagne and the tip. It is in my top ten meals ever.
I could have dined in the same restaurant , same night on the set menu for less than half that but I don't think SWMBO would have been half as happy.
One of our best meals ever was a pre theatre dinner at Simpsons in the Strand a couple of years back - Three courses £20 per person on a set menu of half a dozen choices per course. SWMBO still drools over the memory of their steak and kidney pud!
I agree this was expensive. There was a £15 cover charge for the music, so we managed to eat (2.5 courses) and drink very well for a bit over £45 a head, which is expensive, especially for a school night, but it really was very good. That doesn't then seem so pricey, especially as my Jools tickets were £34 each with no food/drink!
I'm unlikely to go back there because of the cost. Mind you, you don't have to have a full meal, they just ask that you order at least 1 course. Beer was £3.50 a pint, cheapest wine £19ish a bottle so we racked up some cost there!!
Yesterday I went to Guilfest ( and large concert in Guildford that annualy is rapidly gaining a large reputation and pulling in big names)
A stunning day.
Started off with Ali Cambell's UB40 who ran through a great repetoire of UB40 classics ( a reprehensible sleasebag but none the less a good voice) and ended up at clse to midnight with an hour and half of The Human League, who were utterly stunning. Inbetween watched Just Jack, declined the N-Dubz instead to watch a good Hazel O'connor set. Much great food and drink.
However the real show of the day, was a howling tight brass and sax section, jumpy and bouncy rythm section of drums and bongos and stuff that shakes and makes a noise, and a guy in a bright yellow zoot suit and wide brimmed panama - and of the course the joyous and delicious coconuts.
Way to go Kid Creole. As he said, this is for all you illigitimate children out there, you know who you are - Annie I'm not your daddie.
Sounds good - more fun than the 8+ hours I spent on the motorways beween Reading and the Lakes taking son up to grandparents for a week anyway...
>> Started off with Ali Cambell's UB40 who ran through a great repetoire of UB40 classics
>> ( a reprehensible sleasebag but none the less a good voice)
Can you expand (on the reprehensible, not his voice)? Is it his politics? Don't know much about the guy, although I believe he (or UB40) are popular with the less well known reggae artists who have benefitted from the royalties earned through the band's cover versions of their songs. I bought 'Food for Thought' (30 years ago - yikes), although Kingston Town is probably my favourite now.
>> watch a good Hazel O'connor set.
'Will you' - classic, used to try to play Wesley McGoogan's sax solo but wasn't quite the same :)
I was racking my brains trying to remember a UB40 song called 'would I lie to you', failed, so had to resort to youtube. Didn't know it was *that* 'would I lie to you', which is a cracking song. I can imagine it would be impressive seeing someone sing that well, live. www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ppqs7v-tjw
The full orchestra and choir was missing at Guildford (it will be back for his shows in london)
but the show I saw was all the better for its absence, the brass was much harder ( its very soft here) the rythm section was really pumped up. The coconuts without the choir had to really put the effort in to sing the background vocals while dancing and did it well. A much more strident and urgent performance really had the crowd jumping.
And hes not bad for a 60 year old, coconuts must be good for the health.
BBC R2 Radcliffe & Maconie did a feature on band Propaganda last week, who were on Trevor Horn's ZTT label in the 80s - they're biggest act was Frankie Goes To Hollywood.
I bought Propaganda's Secret Wish album when it came out, and hearing some of the tracks again reminded me how good they were. Fantastic production, but still had good tunes underneath.
Oh gosh, how I hate that Katherine Jenkins version. I love her voice, but it sounds like she's just been handed the lyric and told to sing it. No passion, no emotion. The original is probably my favourite song of the last 10 years so I really don't like this somewhat Karaoke version.
In terms of covers versus original then 'all along the watchower' is a pretty close call IMHO between Hendrix and Dylan, I prefer (one of) the Byrds' cover of 'lay lady lay' to the Dylan original.
Great track. I used to have that amongst many others on my cassette walkman on my way to my evening shelf filling job at the supermarket :-) The manager was a top man. He allowed us to direct the stereo at the mic on the front desk when the customers had gone so that the music would play all over the shop. God knows what he thought of our tastes. Joy Division, The Cure, U2, Prince, a real mix.
Following on from Smokies visit to the Crooked Billet to see Ben Waters as discussed above, did anyone spot the Telegraph Food Reviewers rave report about it last Saturday where it got a 9/10 mark.
This guy is a superb blues/bluesrock guitarist. He does venture out of the US but I was lucky enough to see him in the Hogs Breath bar, Key West a few weeks ago on a slightly windy night which kept most people in. The bar contained his band, five or six hangers on, me and two buddies and the barmen. Absolutely superb.
>> Being very slow, I've only just discovered Florence Foster Jenkins. A breath of fresh air.
>>
>> You can find her album "the Unbelievable Glory of the Human Voice" on, at least,
>> Spotify or WE7.
>>
>> Thank me later.
Good recommendation Crankcase. I like nothing better than a side or two of Florence's while reading the poetry of William McGonagall.
Heard part of an interview with a squeaky country & western songbird poppet on R4 this afternoon. I've already forgotten her name although it is very well known. But I have to confess a shameful taste for that redneck music.
The lyrics generally speaking - there are exceptions - possess a distasteful mixture of thuggishness, philistinism, self-pity and syrupy sentimentality, often laughably extreme. But the music very often swings wonderfully in its white-boy or -girl rural way, with some of the best guitar-twangers in the business and good singing too (lyrics apart). The word I think is 's h i tkicking' if I can get away with that.
The contrast between the exquisite musical and grossly annoying philosophic sensibilities reminds me of some Caribbean music. Toots and the Maytals for example who sing like angels but whose discourse can be dismayingly bleak (All over this land... Desolate ... Desolate ... etc.).
Just felt I had to get that off my chest. Basically I am a musical philistine. Can't stand most opera but have a soft spot for Wagner and Gilbert and Sullivan. But not even them in any quantity. I'd be hard put to sit through a whole one and wouldn't let myself in for it.
"self-pity and syrupy sentimentality, often laughably extreme."
Well they do say that if you play a country and western record backwards your dog comes home, your wife returns, your truck gets fixed and you win the lottery.
Or: you miraculously recover your ability to walk, get your gun and put Julie in the ground, thus stopping her from taking her love anywhere actually.
Or: Leroy Brown after a short visit to a&e reverts to looking like a jigsaw puzzle with all its pieces still present and correct.
Or the Boy named Sue and the old crocodile make up and fall into each other's arms. 'I love you son.' 'I love you too dad. Never really fancied bein called Billy Joe no way. I kinda like dolls and dresses really.'
etc. etc. You have to remember the thuggish side along with the mawkish, CGN.
or Billy Joe MacAllister after surviving the 100 ft drop from Tallahatchie bridge crawls several miles through the Mississippi mud and all the way up Choctaw ridge to demand "why the hell did you throw my record collection off that damned bridge" and "you can tell your mother what she can do with those wretched black-eyed peas"
>
>> in its white-boy or -girl rural way, with some of the best guitar-twangers in the
>> business and good singing too (lyrics apart). The word I think is 's h i
>> tkicking' if I can get away with that.
Yeah, my friend in Phoenix, Rick, who wandered around his factory with two pearl handled lon his hip asked me which route I had arrived on. When I said from Flagstaff, he said
"Jeez godamn, thats a one horse sh itkicking town."
Drove through Flagstaff Arizona, thinking about Winona, in the middle of the night in 1973, small hours, and stopped to get a coke out of a machine. A hitchhiker was with me, a sort of greaser on his way from LA to Dallas which he called 'a beautiful town'. Nice guy actually.
The whole town was asleep and there was no one about. While we were stuffing money in the coke machine a 7 litre Ford Ltd Sheriff's prowl car idled past and went round the corner, a big face eyeing us. We got back in the car and the greaser said, pointing to a nearby side street: 'He's gonna come out of that street.' Sure enough he did, and dawdled past us once again taking a good look but not stopping.
'Heh heh,' the greaser sniggered triumphantly. 'He don't know nothin about big cities like where we come from.'
Later we picked up another hitchhiker, a middle-class hippy from some northern city, Chicago perhaps, cat with granny specs and long hair a la John Lennon. He took a snobbish attitude to the greaser and clearly felt that he had more in common with me than that slightly rough working class chap, who carried a small razor blade in his wallet for protection - useless I thought. After we dropped the greaser at the Dallas turnoff he made these views clear. But after having him in the car for 24 hours I much preferred the greaser really. He had a good heart, which the hippy seemed to lack.
Under appreciated music artists - Crankcase
