My music blogs
I have written a number of blogs about some of my favourite songs for The Guardian newspaper and the excellent herecomesthesong.com website. Here they all are in one place:
SKIP JAMES: I'M SO GLAD
In April 1964 Nehemiah ‘Skip’ James was not a happy man. Holed up in the Tunica County Hospital in north-west Mississippi, ravaged by a cancer that had left a tumorous growth on his penis, the 61-year-old had little money, few friends, fewer prospects and a simmering anger at the injustice of it all. His unfortunate affliction – which ultimately led to castration – he blamed on an ex-girlfriend against whom he vowed a murderous revenge. A career bootlegger, pimp, gambler, gunslinger and sometime minister of the church, the stricken James was also the subject of a manhunt. Not, though, a target of federal officials or revenue agents as he initially feared (his nickname ‘Skippy’ had grown out of his frequent need to skip town when in trouble), but of a trio of young white, middle-class enthusiasts from California for whom Skip James was nothing but a mysterious name on a rare, dusty old 78 record, a phantom of the blues they wanted to track down. Three decades earlier in 1931, James – as an adjunct to his other ‘professions’ – had been a blues singer and the 20 songs he recorded in a two-day session for Paramount in Grafton, Wisconsin (for which he was initially paid just $8 in expenses) would ultimately secure his place as one of the greatest of the Mississippi blues men. His haunting style of high-pitched singing and accomplished guitar and piano playing on songs such as I’d Rather be The Devil and I’m So Glad marked him out as unique among his contemporaries. I'm So Glad is an extraordinary example of James' prowess. If you thought pyrotechnic guitar solos only started when Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix strapped on their electric Les Pauls and Stratocasters, then think again. At a time when an acoustic guitar was merely something to accompany and drive along a song, James attacked his instrument with a fervour of speed and virtuosity of fingerpicking that had never been heard before. Even today its energy grabs you by the lapels. I'm so glad, And I am glad I am glad, I'm glad I don't know what to do Don't know what to do I don't know what to do I'm tired of weepin' Tired of moanin’ Tired of groanin’ for you Despite his undoubted talents James failed to achieve any commercial success and when he sang I'm So Glad he clearly wasn't (who said Americans don’t do irony?). Indeed, when he played I'd Rather Be The Devil on the streets of Jackson, Mississippi, he sounded so sorrowful that spectators would offer him money to stop singing. By the early 1960s only a handful of the ‘race’ recordings that were released as 78s survived and few had ever heard of Skip James, even though, as Stephen Calt suggests in I'd Rather Be The Devil, his fascinating 1994 biography of Skip James: “I'm So Glad and Special Rider ... was probably the greatest double-sided blues 78 ever issued.” In 1932, just a few months after his recording session, James put the blues behind him when he suddenly left Mississippi (skipping town again?) to become a minister at his father’s church in Texas. For a while he eschewed the devil’s music in favour of spirituals, but this caused him to lose his musical mojo and it seems – in a memorable phrase from Calt’s biography – that unlike other blues legends he had ‘sold his soul to the church’. By the time of his rediscovery in 1964 – by the trio of John Fahey, Bill Barth and Henry Vestine – James hadn’t picked up a guitar for years and, despite a dramatic appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival just a few weeks later, he was a shadow of his former self in his subsequent recordings. As he battled with his failing health he struggled to find venues to perform at and, when he did, his songs were often deemed too depressing for him to be asked back. Help, though, was just around the corner for the Mississippi blues veteran and it came from a truly unexpected direction – from 4,500 miles away on the banks of another famous river, the Thames. Young, white, middle-class English musicians had begun to pick up on the blues through compilation ‘jazz’ LPs that began to appear in Europe in the late 1950s and early 1960s, some of which had included a handful of Skip James’ 1931 recordings. Bands such as Cream, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, the Rolling Stones and the original Fleetwood Mac mined a rich seam of newly rediscovered blues classics and that in turn sent the music back over the Atlantic, encouraging Americans to rediscover their own heritage in what became the blues revival of the 1960s. Some of this new generation of rock musicians disappointingly failed to credit the real source of their songs but Eric Clapton gave full acknowledgement to Skip James for the 1966 Cream version of I'm So Glad – a decision that enabled James, for the only time in his life, actually to make some money from one of his songs. The $10,000 he received in royalties undoubtedly improved his quality of life before he finally succumbed to cancer on 3 October 1969. Cream's bassist Jack Bruce, in a 1997 interview, recalled a time in the 1970s when he was playing in Philadelphia with West, Bruce and Laing: ‘I went into the dressing room and there was this little old lady sitting very uncomfortably with all the really loud music. It was Ms Skip James. She’d come along to thank me for recording that song. She said her family made more money from the version Cream did than in her late husband’s whole life as a musician. The money enabled him to have decent medical care at the end of his life.’ It seems rather churlish, given his life story, to point out that although James wrote some of the most memorable blues songs and richly deserved finally to receive royalties for one of his recordings, he didn’t write I'm So Glad – that song was in fact a reworking of So Tired, a 1927 composition by Art Sizemore and George A Little. It was, however, James’ brilliant version that lifted the song into the pantheon of the blues. Skip James, who modestly liked to call himself ‘one of the best men who ever walked’, didn’t think much of Cream’s version of I'm So Glad, lambasting it on his death-bed. ‘They got it ass backwards,’ he said. ‘They don’t have the harmony, the rhythm. I doubled up on it. It’s too good a song to mess up like that. Nobody will ever play it like me.’ In May 2005 I was in the audience at the Royal Albert Hall waiting for Cream to come on stage for their eagerly anticipated reunion concert. Although a long-time fan – it was through listening to Cream as a 13-year-old in 1969 that I began my journey back to the blues of Robert Johnson, Bukka White and Skip James – I was worried that it might turn out to be just another Eric Clapton solo gig but with different backing musicians. But as Clapton strummed the distinctive opening chords I knew my fears were unfounded: he played a song that I had never heard him perform as a solo artist, a song that was Cream through and through. When the singing started I was in heaven and, I have to admit, the emotion of the moment caused the tears to flow. The song? I'm So Glad. And I was. This article was originally published in October 2018 on Neil Morton's excellent music website herecomesthesong.com
THE WHO: I CAN'T EXPLAIN
On Thursday, February 25, 1965, a new band debuted on Top Of The Pops, featuring in the show’s Tip For The Top slot. Watching television in our flat above Bewlay’s tobacconist shop in Streatham High Road, I was an excitable eight-year-old bouncing up and down alongside my father, who rather bemusedly had been trying to see what all this fuss about ‘pop music’ was about. My recall of that moment is incredibly vivid and is one of the strongest memories I have of my father, who was to fall victim to cancer, aged just 42, a few months later. The band was West London’s The Who, and the song – their first single – was I Can’t Explain. I was hooked from the first power chords (E D A E, although I didn’t know anything about guitars then). Got a feeling inside (Can’t explain) It's a certain kind (Can’t explain) I feel hot and cold (Can’t explain) Yeah, down in my soul, yeah (Can’t explain) I said (Can’t explain) I'm feeling good now, yeah, but (Can’t explain) Dizzy in the head and I’m feeling blue The things you’ve said, well, maybe they’re true I'm gettin’ funny dreams again and again I know what it means, but Can’t explain I think it’s love Try to say it to you When I feel blue But I can’t explain (Can’t explain) Forgive me one more time, now (Can’t explain) I said I can’t explain, yeah You drive me out of my mind Yeah, I’m the worrying kind, babe I said I can’t explain Strictly speaking, it wasn’t The Who’s first single – that was Zoot Suit, released under their short-lived Mod-inspired moniker The High Numbers in July, 1964 (they had originally been called The Detours). I Can’t Explain is typical of the 1960s, a love song but, written by guitarist and songwriter supreme Pete Townshend, it has a definite edge. The man himself describes it as about a guy ‘who can’t tell his girlfriend that he loves her because he’s taken too many Dexedrine tablets’ – so not exactly Cliff Richard singing Summer Holiday. Although it became one of The Who’s most enduring songs – often the opening number of their live shows – it is very much influenced by another legendary Sixties band, The Kinks. It came hot on the heels of that band’s single You Really Got Me, and Ray Davies, on hearing The Who’s release, allegedly referred to them as ‘cheeky buggers’. In a later interview with Q Magazine, The Who’s lead singer Roger Daltrey could explain: ‘We already knew Pete could write songs, but it never seemed a necessity in those days to have your own stuff because there was this wealth of untapped music that we could get hold of from America. But then bands like The Kinks started to make it, and they were probably the biggest influence on us – they were a huge influence on Pete, and he wrote I Can’t Explain, not as a direct copy, but certainly, it’s very derivative of The Kinks’ music.’ Townshend was even more candid: ‘It can’t be beat for straightforward Kink copying. There is little to say about how I wrote this. It came out of the top of my head when I was 18 and a half.’ I Can’t Explain does, however, capture the raw energy of The Who – Townshend’s powerful rhythm guitar, John Entwistle’s mesmerising up-front bass, Keith Moon’s electrifyingly energetic drumming and Daltrey’s distinctive vocals. It even features Jimmy Page on second guitar, although speaking years later to Uncut magazine he said: ‘You can hardly hear me because his [Townshend’s] playing was so powerful.’ I Can’t Explain peaked at No8 in the UK charts and was quickly followed by Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere (No10), the anthemic My Generation (No2) and, in early 1966, Substitute (No5). The Who were well on their way to rock immortality. Townshend’s lyrics, all poetic off-the-wall storytelling, often complex, sometimes controversial, always engaging, attracted the ‘art crowd’ of the mid-1960s with one, the French film-maker Alain de Sédouy, describing them in the New Musical Express, the same week they made their TOTP debut, as ‘a logical musical expression of the bewilderment and anarchy of London’s teenagers’. So not quite The Seekers’ I’ll Never Find Another You, which was No1 in the charts that week. The Who went from strength to strength – with Townshend going on to stretch his songwriting credentials with the rock opera Tommy – and the band arguably reached their zenith with the release in August 1971 of their fifth album, Who’s Next. My first live experience of the band was a few weeks later, on Saturday, September 18, 1971, at the Goodbye Summer extravaganza at The Oval cricket ground in London, a benefit concert for Bangladesh. I was by now 15 and also among the 40,000 packed into the outfield at the famous old ground was my future wife Jenny (nine years before we actually met). If I remember correctly, I was positioned roughly at square leg. Topping a bill that also included, among others, Rod Stewart And The Faces, America, Mott The Hoople and Lindisfarne, The Who soon had the ground rocking. Moon closed the innings by battering his drums with a cricket bat during Magic Bus, and the band ended a glorious set with their trademark mass demolition of instruments. ‘As you can see an encore is impossible,’ said compere Rikki Farr as the band exited the debris-strewn stage. An unforgettable night. I Can’t Explain was played – although it was not the opener that night – and the set heavily featured songs from Who’s Next, including a memorable rendition of Won’t Get Fooled Again. The synthesiser opening stunned me, hearing it for the first time. That Oval set was recorded by the celebrated producer Glyn Johns and has been around as a low-quality bootleg for years but last month, now digitally remastered from the original eight-track tapes, it has been released as an official CD, Live At The Oval. Despite not being of the highest sound quality, it still captures the band at their magical peak. My brother Jeremy was also at the gig, although having to man a mobile cigarette and refreshment kiosk at the back of the stands for the entire day meant he didn’t really enjoy the full musical experience. I do recall my friends and me piling into his van at the end of the day for a crowded and bumpy lift home to Richmond. Sixty years after its launch I Can’t Explain nicely bookended the history of The Who when just last week, on October 1, 2025, that first single from 1965 featured as the opening number for what is probably The Who’s last ever performance – at the Acrisure Arena in Thousand Pines, California. Historically, Townshend and Daltry have not always seen eye to eye over the future of The Who so, fingers crossed, it may not be the absolute end. A final UK gig would surely be a more fitting finale for one of the greatest ever bands. Who knows? This article was originally published in October 2025 on Neil Morton's excellent music website herecomesthesong.com
PAUL SIMON: BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER
Saturday, April 25th 1970: I had just turned 14 a month before and here I was at London’s Royal Albert Hall for the first live gig I'd ever been to. A few weeks earlier, my friend Roger and I had sneaked out of school at lunchtime, hopped on a bus from East Sheen and queued for a couple of 10-shilling tickets (this was the last year of old money). Now, in awe at the scale and Victorian magnificence of one of the world's greatest concert halls, we excitedly made our way up to our seats in Upper Orchestra West, the rows of cheaper vantage points behind the stage. What followed was one of the best shows I'd ever get to see. Maybe even the best. Of course I didn't know it then – and for a while I thought all live music would be this good. It was only about 30 years later that I truly came to appreciate the magic I had witnessed that night in Kensington Gore. Back then Simon and Garfunkel were on top of the world. Just three months after its release, their latest album Bridge Over Troubled Water was No1 in the States and the UK and, for good measure, the title song was also top of the pops in the singles chart on both sides of the Atlantic – the first time this double double had been achieved. Behind the scenes, though, all was not well with Paul and Artie. The love-hate relationship that dated back to their teenage days in New York – when in 1957 as Tom and Jerry they enjoyed chart success with Hey, Schoolgirl – was becoming increasingly strained. Garfunkel's decision to embark on a film career (he had spent most of the previous year filming Catch-22 and would go on to shoot Carnal Knowledge in the summer of 1970) angered Simon and meant that only three months after the Albert Hall date the duo would break up – not quite for good but in reality as good as. However, despite the mutual antagonism and jealousy, Paul Simon's melancholic songwriting and Art Garfunkel's angelic voice were a peerless combination and they reached their apogee with the song Bridge Over Troubled Water. A majestic and spiritually uplifting gospel hymn to love, it is Simon’s masterpiece. In Homeward Bound, his excellent (if unflattering) 2016 biography of Simon, Peter Ames Carlin describes how, inspired by the Swan Silvertones’ O Mary Don't You Weep, featuring the falsetto of singer Claude Jeter and the lyric ‘I'll be your bridge over deep water if you trust in my name’, Simon had picked up his guitar and started strumming and a melody slowly came into his head. ‘The first time Paul heard what he was singing,’ writes Carlin, ‘when it registered in his conscious mind, tears came into his eyes. The song felt more channelled through him than written by him, as if Jeter's voice had unlocked a door containing the best melody Paul had ever written.’ Excitedly describing his new song to Garfunkel as his Yesterday, he played a demo featuring his own falsetto voice. His partner loved it and, according to Carlin, urged Simon to sing it himself. ‘It is a great song. You wrote it, you sing beautifully, you deserve to do it.’ However, according to Carlin: ‘In the heat of that tense summer, Paul heard that as an insult. “It’s my best song and it’s not good enough for Artie to want to sing it?” It took only a few minutes for Artie to change his mind but that moment of hesitation – what struck Paul as rejection – took root right alongside everything else Paul had recently come to resent about his partner.’ Even in the light of all the angst in the background, on stage at the Albert Hall that night everything was perfect. Just the diminutive Simon on a stool with his guitar, Garfunkel towering over him at the microphone. An exhilarating version of The Boxer had been the highlight so far, but all roads led to Bridge Over Troubled Water. When the pianist Larry Knechtel, who had played the part on the album, was finally introduced, Simon withdrew from the lights, sat down on a table at the back of the stage (right in front of us as it happened) and left the spotlight to Garfunkel’s voice. Stripped bare of the recorded version’s lush instrumentation, the performance was mesmerising… When you're weary, feeling small When tears are in your eyes, I will dry them all I'm on your side When times get rough And friends just can't be found Like a bridge over troubled water I will lay me down When you're down and out When you're on the street When evening falls so hard I will comfort you I'll take your part When darkness comes And pain is all around Like a bridge over troubled water I will lay me down Sail on silver girl Sail on by Your time has come to shine All your dreams are on their way See how they shine If you need a friend I'm sailing right behind Like a bridge over troubled water I will ease your mind Like a bridge over troubled water I will ease your mind When Garfunkel hit the sustained high note at the end it was as if the entire Albert Hall congregation had been lifted 1,000 feet into the air. Simon then ended the show with a beautiful solo rendition of Song For The Asking and, still buzzing with it all, we rushed out into the cool night air and watched as Garfunkel quickly left the building, mobbed by fans and bundled into a waiting car (no sign of Simon, of course). We decided to walk the seven miles home to Richmond, and nattering away at 19 to the dozen about what we had seen I can still vividly remember helping to push a broken-down car along Kensington High Street and, later still, taking an ill-advised short cut across the total darkness of Barnes Common. Once back home my record player – previously spinning the likes of Cream, John Mayall, Fleetwood Mac and Chicago – was taken over (in the short term at least) by Simon and Garfunkel, much to the relief of my mother, who loved to sing along with Bridge Over Troubled Water. If anybody had asked me then what I thought was the best song ever written there could have been only one answer, and even now – 47 years later – that note always does it for me. It is ironic, perhaps, that although it is Paul Simon’s greatest song it can only really achieve that greatness – despite countless cover versions ranging from Aretha Franklin to Elvis Presley – when sung by his erstwhile partner Art Garfunkel. It perfectly sums up the flawed relationship between two old friends who seemingly can’t stand each other. What a waste.
ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND: STORMY MONDAY
Saturday, October 30th 1971: Listening to Mike Raven’s Radio 1 show late one chilly autumn night in 1971 I came across the brilliant guitar playing of Duane Allman. I was a 15-year-old schoolboy at the time, safely tucked up in bed with my trusty transistor radio turned up as loud as I dared. I had been teaching myself the guitar for just under a year and was (I foolishly imagined) well on the way to becoming a rock star. The blues was my game. I reckoned I had just about mastered the genre by then – it was just three chords and a twiddly turnaround at the end of each verse. Simple. Add a few diminished chords to my repertoire and master the pentatonic and mixolydian scales and the world would be my oyster. The song Raven played that night “Stormy Monday Blues” changed all that. Years later I learned that it had always had a lot of chords – both T-Bone Walker's original and Bobby "Blue" Bland's later version – but the Allmans seemed determined to cram into its 12 bars as many chords as I had ever known and several I hadn't: ninths, minor sevenths, augmenteds. What witchcraft was this? They call it Stormy Monday But Tuesday’s just as bad They call it Stormy Monday But Tuesday’s just as bad Lord, and Wednesda’s worse And Thursday’s all so sad The Eagle flies on Friday Saturday I goout to play The Eagle flies on Friday Saturday I go out to play Sunday I go to church Lord, and I kneel down and pray Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy on me. Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy on me. Though I’m tryin’ and tryin’ to find my baby Won’t someone please send her home to me Gregg Allman's voice has never sounded as good as on this memorable slow blues but it is his older brother Duane's guitar solo that immediately grabbed me by the throat, strangling any notion that I had a handle on this music. I was completely mesmerised. Like most truly great guitar solos it is simple and unflashy, the magic coming from the elegant phrasing, the rich melody and the subtle changes in tone and attack. It is not one of Duane's electrifying slide solos – for those, listen to Statesboro Blues or Done Somebody Wrong. Instead, it builds calmly to a majestic climax – one that left me breathless with a hunger to hear more. "That was Stormy Monday Blues," said Raven as the song finished. "A tribute to Duane Allman, who sadly died yesterday." I was aghast. A new hero discovered and lost, all in the strumming of a chord. Fifty years later, though, and I am still in thrall to the virtuosity of Duane Allman's guitar playing, while barely a week goes by without me listening to at least one track from the Allman Brothers' classic album At Fillmore East. I still haven't mastered the mixolydian scale though.
CARPENTERS: GOODBYE TO LOVE
The Carpenters have never really been cool. Not now, not then, not ever. So on the day I went to see them at the London Palladium in November 1976 I wasn't exactly shouting my attendance from the rooftops. Back then I liked to think (mistakenly as it turned out) that I was pretty cool – preferring the Band to Bread, Santana to Sweet, and the Mahavishnu Orchestra to Mud. So what was I doing high-tailing down the M1 to see the king and queen of nauseous, sentimental, sugary pop? Three and a half decades later I can't for the life of me recall why, although I do remember the friend who flogged me the tickets telling me he thought the Carpenters' resident guitarist Tony Peluso was as good as Eric Clapton, which had at least got me thinking (mostly that my friend was certifiable). I wasn't expecting much when Richard and Karen Carpenter, complete with band and orchestra, took to the stage that Saturday night. However, what they served up was about as close to perfection as pop music can get. The highlight of the night – captured for posterity on the album Live at the Palladium – was a 15-minute medley of their hits. Karen Carpenter's voice was surely one of pop music's finest, and her effortlessly warm and velvety voice was a revelation as she and the band went through Close to You, Only Yesterday and Rainy Days and Mondays. By the time they reached Goodbye to Love I realised it would be safe to admit going to the concert after all. I'll say goodbye to love No one ever cared if I should live or die Time and time again the chance for love has passed me by And all I know of love Is how to live without it I just can't seem to find it So I've made my mind up I must live my life alone And though it's not the easy way I guess I've always known I'd say goodbye to love There are no tomorrows for this heart of mine Surely time will lose these bitter memories And I'll find that there is someone to believe in And to live for something I could live for All the years of useless search Have finally reached an end Loneliness and empty days will be my only friend From this day love is forgotten I'll go on as best I can What lies in the future Is a mystery to us all No one can predict the wheel of fortune as it falls There may come a time when I will see that I've been wrong But for now this is my song And it's goodbye to love I'll say goodbye to love A melancholic ballad, it is made even more poignant in retrospect. Karen Carpenter was already painfully thin and would die of heart failure brought on by anorexia in 1983. In her short life she apparently never found true happiness so to hear her sing the lyric "all I know of love is how to live without it" is, for a softie like me at least, heartbreaking. However, as the medley moved to its conclusion something quite amazing happened. From out of the assembled ranks of orchestra and band members a guitar player abruptly stood up, taking the spotlight to play a terrific solo that surely should have been a feature anywhere else but in a Carpenters song. Tony Peluso might not have been as good as Clapton, he might not even have been terribly cool, but he and the Carpenters won at least one new fan that night.
ROBERT JOHNSON: HELLHOUND ON MY TRAIL
On a blisteringly hot Sunday in June 1937 a young man walked into the striking art deco office building that stands at 508 Park Building in Dallas, Texas and – with guitar in hand – made his way up to a makeshift studio on the third floor that was primarily used for storage. At 26 years old, the itinerant musician from the rural Mississippi delta had only been recorded on four occasions – three in a San Antonio hotel room seven months earlier, sessions that had produced 16 songs, and a relatively limited shift in Dallas the day before in which he cut a further three. His fifth session, on that Sunday, was to be his last but the 10 blues tracks he laid down have ensured that the name of Robert Johnson will be forever revered. Johnson’s output – just 29 songs in all – was one of the most influential on 20th century music. His uniquely distinctive voice and incredible guitar playing provided the bridge between country and electric city blues and, later, the inspiration for the middle-class English blues revival of the 1960s that in turn took the music of the Delta back to its roots. Eric Clapton, one of Johnson’s biggest devotees, has described it as ‘the finest music I’ve ever heard’. The first track Johnson recorded that day in Dallas was Hell Hound On My Trail which is arguably his – and the blues’ – greatest piece of music and it has haunted me since I first heard it on the classic King Of The Delta Blues Singers album as a 13-year-old in 1969. Blues music is not exactly meant to be laugh-a-minute but Hell Hound is quite simply terrifying. Johnson, who was said to have sold his soul to the devil in exchange for mastery of the guitar, is being chased through the night by a hell hound; a man possessed, he sees demons everywhere – real or imagined, or both. His use of a signature pulsing bass line (open Em tuning helps) propels the song with an intensity that is accentuated by the anguished and frenetic licks on the guitar’s top strings. It is undoubtedly the product of a troubled mind. Samuel Charters, the renowned blues historian, has written that ‘the first and last verses are the finest moments in all blues poetry’ and it is easy to see why: I got to keep moving, I’ve got to keep moving Blues falling down like hail, blues falling down like hail And the day keeps on worrying me There’s a hell hound on my trail Hell hound on my trail It is not clear what the terror is that is enveloping him. But that hell hound is surely after him. Johnson loved giving women the eye – including the married variety – a predilection that often saw him fleeing furious husbands, a predilection that ultimately did for him in 1938. Is he fleeing one now, or is this the devil chasing him down wanting payback for their deal forged at the crossroads? Maybe it’s just the demon drink (another of his predilections) giving him hallucinations. If today was Christmas Eve, today was Christmas Eve And tomorrow was Christmas Day, If today was Christmas Eve, tomorrow was Christmas Day Oh, wouldn’t we have a time, baby All I would need is my little sweet rider, just to pass the time away To pass the time away This verse seems out of place in the song but Johnson is possibly just wishing that instead of running for his life he was enjoying a cosy time (Christmas Eve and Day were slang words for the weekend) with his latest ‘rider’ girlfriend. You sprinkled hot foot powder all around my door, all around my door You sprinkled hot foot powder all around your daddy’s door It keeps me with a rambling mind, rider, every old place I go Every old place I go This is all about voodoo, which was prevalent in the folklore of the South. Hot foot powder was supposed to drive away unwanted people. To make it you just needed, among other things, cayenne pepper, graveyard dirt and gunpowder! I can tell the wind is rising, leaves trembling on the trees, trembling on the trees I can tell the wind is rising, leaves trembling on the trees All I need’s my little sweet little woman and to keep my company Keep my company This, to me at least, is the most powerful verse. The wind is rising. Leaves trembling. Trees in the deep south in the 1930s often bore ‘strange fruit’ so perhaps Johnson pursued the wrong white girl and was fleeing an angry lynch mob. But if it was to be the end of him, he just craved some time with his girl. It seems incredible that after starting his final session with such a powerful and emotional performance there was still enough in Johnson for him to record another nine songs, including the classics Me And The Devil Blues, Travelling Riverside Blues and Love In Vain. Hell Hound On My Trail is an extremely difficult song to cover. Just how do you convincingly convey the terror that Johnson projects? Jeremy Spencer produced a piano version for the original Fleetwood Mac album in 1968 but the best cover is, not surprisingly, by Eric Clapton (videos below). His 2004 DVD, Sessions for Robert J, features a stunning example of how Johnson might have sounded if he had lived longer, moved to Chicago and got his hands on an electric guitar and a band. One thing, though, has always puzzled me about the Clapton version. For some reason he alters the lyric to ‘spinning’ on the trees, a baffling decision. ‘Trembling’ is surely far more evocative of approaching terror, and poetically alliterative too. Perhaps, for all his chequered history, Clapton could not feel as terrified as Johnson had been. * * * Just under 60 years after Johnson walked out of that building in Dallas and into blues immortality I was sitting in a busy departure lounge at Heathrow airport waiting to board a plane for Chicago. I watched closely as an elderly black man with a guitar case shuffled across the room and sat down next to me. Being a fan of the blues – and Robert Johnson in particular – the combination of old man, guitar and destination Chicago made me think he might be a famous player. Being painfully shy I didn’t engage him in conversation (to be honest he looked a little scary) but I craned my neck to get a look at the label on his guitar. ‘Mr D Edwards’ it read and – unimpressed – I returned to my paperback. Four hours later, halfway across the Atlantic, it hit me like a sledgehammer: Mr D Edwards Mr David Edwards Dave Edwards Dave ‘Honeyboy’ Edwards. Honeyboy Edwards: the man who was with Robert Johnson the night he was murdered in Greenwood, Mississippi on 16 August 1938. Regrets, I’ve had a few. But few more than not talking to Honeyboy that day.
DEREK AND THE DOMINOS: LAYLA
Launched into the stratosphere with arguably (in my humble opinion, indisputably) the greatest opening riff in the history of rock, Layla is Eric Clapton’s masterpiece. A proclamation of unrequited love to Pattie Boyd, the song urgently lays bare the agony of his frustration at falling for the wife of his best friend, George Harrison. The song was inspired by a book given to the guitarist – The Story of Layla and Majnum by the Persian poet Nizami, about a man who had fallen in love with a woman who is unattainable. Seeing the obvious parallel in his own life, Clapton wrote his version and in the summer of 1970 he recorded it with his band, Derek And The Dominos, in Miami, Florida. What'll you do when you get lonely And nobody's waiting by your side? You've been running and hiding much too long You know it's just your foolish pride I tried to give you consolation When your old man had let you down Like a fool, I fell in love with you You turned my whole world upside down Layla, you’ve got me on my knees Layla, I’m begging, darling please Layla, darling won’t you ease my worried mind It is astonishing to think that Boyd inspired not only Layla but also Harrison’s Something as well as Clapton's later Wonderful Tonight (penned during the requited phase of their relationship) and Old Love. Indeed, all of the songs Clapton wrote for the Layla album contain desperate messages in music to Boyd. One of them was Bell Bottom Blues, so titled because Clapton rather prosaically had promised to buy her a pair of Landlubber jeans while he was in Miami: Bell bottom blues, you made me cry I don't want to lose this feeling And if I could choose a place to die It would be in your arms Do you want to see me crawl across the floor to you? Do you want to hear me beg you to take me back? I’d gladly do it because I don’t want to fade away Give me one more day, please I don't want to fade away In your heart I want to stay And then there’s I Looked Away: And if it seemed a sin To love another man’s woman, baby, I guess I’ll keep on sinning Loving her, Lord, till my very last day But I looked away And she ran away from me today; I'm such a lonely man And It's Too Late: It’s too late, she’s gone It’s too late, my baby’s gone Wish I had told her she was my only one It’s too late, she’s gone She’s gone, yes she’s gone She’s gone, my baby’s gone She’s gone, yes she’s gone Where can my baby be? And I wonder does she know When she left me, it hurt me so I need your love babe, please don’t make me wait Tell me it’s not too late The finished album is testimony to the extraordinary burst of creativity that Clapton’s passion for Pattie had inspired, both in his writing and guitar playing, and its crowning glory is undoubtedly the title track. However, Layla isn’t just about Clapton and the love he had lost; it was also about discovering the musical brother he had always wanted but until then had never found. When the Dominos – Clapton, keyboard player Bobby Whitlock, bassist Carl Radle and drummer Jim Gordon – first started work on the album, the combination of Clapton’s personal anguish and the copious amount of drugs the band were imbibing meant that very little musical progress had been made until one night the producer, Tom Dowd, urged Clapton to check out a gig by one of his other artists, The Allman Brothers Band, in nearby Coconut Grove. When Clapton walked by the front of the stage as the band were playing, their lead guitarist Duane Allman was so shocked when he recognised him that he momentarily stopped playing. ‘I loved them,’ wrote Clapton in his 2007 autobiography, ‘but what blew me away was Duane Allman’s guitar playing. I was mesmerised by him.’ So much so that after a lengthy jam with the Allmans he invited Duane to join him for the Layla sessions. The pair clicked immediately and the energy generated by the interplay between Clapton’s Fender Stratocaster and Allman’s Gibson Les Paul Goldtop (recently sold at auction for $1.25m) lifted the Dominos to new heights. ‘There were very few words exchanged,’ remembered Dowd. ‘Just complete musical dialogue among them. They just looked at each other and said ‘Hey man’, and the magic happened.’ According to Clapton: ‘Duane and I became inseparable during the time we were in Florida. He was like the musical brother that I never had. More so than Jimi [Hendrix] who was essentially a loner. Duane was a family man, a brother. Unfortunately for me he had a family, but I loved it while it lasted. Those kind of experiences don’t happen every day and I knew enough by then to cherish it while I could.’ Initially Layla was intended to be more of a slow ballad, along the lines of the version Clapton performed years later on his Unplugged album, but Allman had other ideas. Taking a vocal melody from the Albert King song As The Years Go Passing By and speeding it up, he composed the now immortal 12-note opening riff and the song really began to soar. Now it was time for Dowd – one of the most unsung heroes of modern music – to add his brand of magic to the song. Originally a physicist, Dowd had worked on the Manhattan Project, the US atomic bomb programme during the second world war. His subsequent career, as a music producer and recording engineer, spanned just about the complete history of modern music, from his work in 1950 on If I Knew You Were Coming I'd Have Baked a Cake by Eileen Barton, through, among countless others, to John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk and Ray Charles via Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, Cream and The Allman Brothers, right up to Joe Bonamassa's 2000 debut album A New Day Yesterday. Dowd, who died in 2002, pioneered the art of multi-track recording, and was a huge influence on the sound of late 20th century music. It is worth remembering that when he recorded Layla in 1970 it was only a couple of years earlier that George Martin had recorded The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper album across just four tracks – the most available in Britain at the time. By contrast, Layla has six guitar tracks alone and is still arguably the finest piece of multi-tracking. The final piece of the jigsaw was applied to Layla three weeks later when the majestic piano coda was added to the end of the song. Credited to the Dominos’ drummer Jim Gordon, who had been repeatedly playing the piece during breaks in the sessions, it later emerged that he had actually co-written it with his girlfriend at the time, Rita Coolidge, who was not credited. ‘I was infuriated,’ wrote Coolidge in her 2016 autobiography Delta Lady. ‘What they’d clearly done was take the song Jim and I had written, jettisoned the lyrics, and tacked it on to the end of Eric’s song. It was almost the same arrangement. I have to admit it sounded stunning.’ However, the Layla album was not initially a success when it was released on 9 November 1970 (few people at the time realised that Derek was in fact Eric) but it has subsequently become one of the best-loved guitar recordings of all time and is still revered today. Indeed, in August 2019 The Tedeschi Trucks Band – one of the most exciting contemporary live bands – played their version of the entire Layla album at the Lockn’ Festival in Arrington, Virginia. Their take on Layla thrillingly captures the dynamism of the original. Not that surprising perhaps, given the pedigree of the band’s guitarist Derek Trucks: named after the Dominos, a latter-day member of The Allman Brothers Band, a nephew of their original drummer Butch Trucks, as well as having also played for a while in Clapton’s touring band. At its core Layla is a desperate plea for love and back in 1970 after Clapton had finished recording the album he returned home to England and sought out Pattie to play her a cassette of the title song. ‘He played it two or three times,’ wrote Pattie in her 2007 autobiography Wonderful Today. ‘Each time watching my face intently for my reaction. My first thought was: ‘Oh God, everybody's going to know who this is about.’ I felt uncomfortable that he was pushing me in a direction I wasn’t certain I wanted to go. But the song got the better of me, with the realisation that I had inspired such passion and such creativity. I could resist no longer.’ Despite creating such a fabulous album, Derek And The Dominos soon split up and Clapton all but disappeared for the next two years. Duane Allman had been invited to join the band full time but decided to stay with The Allman Brothers, only to be killed in a motorcycle accident in 1971. Jim Gordon was jailed in 1983 after killing his mother. He was suffering from schizophrenia having being misdiagnosed and treated for alcohol addiction instead. He was still behind bars when he died in March 2023. Eric Clapton and Pattie Boyd finally married in 1979 but would divorce in 1989. Me? I love Layla so much the riff doubles as the ringtone on my mobile. Diddle-iddle, diddle-eee, dee, dee, dee, dee, dee…
ELTON JOHN: GOODBYE YELLOW BRICK ROAD
Rubbish. A load of old trash. Garbage. These are the words that always spring to my mind when I hear the opening tracks of Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album. Not, though, because Funeral for a Friend and Love Lies Bleeding are in themselves unsavoury – quite the opposite, in fact – but because they always conjure up memories of the halcyon summer of 1974 when I was working as a dustman for Egham District Council. Back then, in the days before wheelie bins by the roadside, dustmen used to have to walk round to the back of houses and – (please try to stay with me on this one) – pick up heavy metal dustbins, lug them back to the refuse truck, empty them and then carry them back whence they came. Not much fun, you might correctly think, except when your round included the exclusive Wentworth estate and when the bins being emptied belonged to the likes of Donovan, Frank Muir, Danny Blanchflower and, of course, Elton “Hercules” John himself. Emptying Elton’s bin was the highlight of the week. We would approach the threshold of his mansion, press the buzzer, sonorously announce our presence with the guttural utterance of a single word - "dustmen" - and then wait for the automatic gates to open before waltzing the 50 yards or so up his drive to where he kept his bins. Not once did I ever see a soul but it was all terribly exciting. A few years later somebody started photographing celebrities' rubbish and made a bestselling coffee-table book out of it, but my interest in Elton’s trash went deeper. I had been introduced to the Goodbye Yellow Brick Road LP by Lesley, my girlfriend at the time, who was a great fan, and being desperate to impress her – I was a dustman after all – I used to pilfer stuff from Elton’s bins to give to her as presents (quite why the relationship didn't last is still a mystery to me). Anyway, Funeral For a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding is the song that got me hooked on Elton John. It is a magnificent piece of music from his finest album and the theatrical intro of swirling winds, haunting chimes and horror-movie synthesiser never fails to send a shiver up my spine. The first half, Funeral For a Friend – Elton’s visualisation of the type of music he'd want for his own funeral – is an instrumental, almost classical in its ambition, featuring some great piano and guitar sequences, which then segues, courtesy of Davey Johnstone's blistering riffs, into the hard-rocking Love Lies Bleeding. Elton solely responsible for the instrumental Funeral For A Friend but Love Lies Bleeding is where his writing partner, Bernie Taupin - one of the all-time great lyricists - begins to sprinkle his own magic on the album. The roses in the window box Have tilted to one side Everything about this house Was born to grow and die Oh it doesn't seem a year ago To this very day You said I'm sorry honey If I don't change the pace I can't face another day And love lies bleeding in my hand Oh it kills me to think of you with another man I was playing rock and roll and you were just a fan But my guitar couldn't hold you So I split the band Love lies bleeding in my hands This is an angry, bitter break-up song, which is about as far as you can get away from the tone of the classic Taupin / John song that currently features in the Christmas ad For Elton John’s farewell tour (er... I mean forJohn Lewis and Partners). The lyrics for Your Song - in stark contrast to Love Lies Bleeding - are gentle, longing, romantic, naive even, and layered with a heavy dose of sugar, rather than with the acid of Love Lies Bleeding. In many ways the two songs represent the bookends of love's various and tangled emotions and demonstrate the breadth of Taupin's craft. It's a little bit funny, this feeling inside I'm not one of those who can easily hide I don't have much money, but boy if I did I'd buy a big house where we both could live If I was a sculptor, but then again, no Or a woman who makes potions on a travelling show I know it's not much, but it's the best I can do My gift is my song, and this one's for you And you can tell everybody this is your song It may be quite simple, but now that it's done I hope you don't mind I hope you don't mind that I put down in words How wonderful life is, now you're in the world Taupin wrote the lyrics to Your Song while sitting on the roof of 20 Denmark Street in London, where a young Elton was working as an office boy for a music publishing firm (which explains the line that starts the third verse "I sat on the roof and kicked off the moss"). Your song was Elton John’s first major hit and catapulted him to fame. In no time at all, he found himself on the other side of the Atlantic and the talk of America. Even John Lennon was impressed. In a 1975 interview in Rolling Stone he said: “I remember hearing Elton John’s Your Song, heard it in America - it was one of Elton’s first big hits - and remember thinking, 'Great, that's the first new thing that's happened since we [The Beatles] happened.' It was a step forward. There was something about his vocal that was an improvement on all of the English vocals until then.” Seeing Elton John his band live is to experience a musical tour de force and Funeral For a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding is always a highlight and well worth the price of a ticket on its own. Indeed, I have already booked my seats for Elton’s final lap of honour at the O2 in November 2020 in anticipation. Must go now as I need to put the bins out.
PROFESSOR LONGHAIR: TIPITINA
New Orleans. Summer 1977. I was a freshly-graduated 21-year-old with a student work permit arranged under the British Universities North America Club scheme. I had fixed myself up with a job selling ice cream and, after a flight to JFK and a night in a seedy hotel off Times Square in New York, I took the 30-hour Greyhound bus ride to the deep south. The Crescent City was my destination and, at that time, I knew little about it. I didn’t really know what to expect. I thought I was going to the land of Mark Twain and riverboat gamblers on the mighty Mississippi – and, musicially speaking, I was just going to check out the Animals’ House Of The Rising Sun. I vividly remember my first foray into New Orleans’ French Quarter, sitting under the shady trees of Jackson Square and thinking just how far away from home I was. Alone, excited, and more than a little scared, it seemed like another world. The first thing that hit me, after the intense heat, was the sound. There was music everywhere, the like of which I had never heard before; the mysterious, unfamiliar rhythms were immediately intoxicating. After a couple of days driving round the city’s less than salubrious residential areas selling ice cream from a converted post office van, I soon realised that my life expectancy might be spectacularly reduced if I continued so I quit and finally secured a job in the (much safer) accounts department of Godchaux’s clothing departmental store on Canal Street. I rented an apartment on Toulouse Street in the Vieux Carré and in the evenings I continued my musical education. I had been a Delta blues fan since discovering Robert Johnson after delving into the roots of the British blues of Cream, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, the original Fleetwood Mac and the American Southern rock of the Allman Brothers Band and their magnificent Live At The Fillmore East album. However, nothing had prepared me for the musical gumbo I was about to experience in New Orleans: jazz, funk, cajun, zydeco, soul, blues, R&B, boogie-woogie, gospel – the ingredients seemed endlessly rich. I starting visiting the city’s music clubs and I remember seeing Fats Domino at Rosy’s (and shaking his hand afterwards), the newly-formed Neville Brothers, the Meters and various cajun and zydeco bands at the Maple Leaf Bar on Oak Street. And, just to underline the 'breadth' of my enlightenment, I also saw Leo Sayer at the Municipal Auditorium – perhaps I was becoming a little homesick! Then one afternoon, while exploring the city’s famous Garden District on foot, I wandered into a bar off the beautifully named Tchoupitoulas Street (the word means ‘those who live at the river’ in Chochtaw). It was a small, newly-opened joint and it was almost empty when I went in. I ordered a beer – a Pabst Blue Ribbon – and sat down to rest my weary legs. There was a piano at one corner of the room and it wasn’t long before an old black guy wandered in, sat down and started playing. He was just doodling at the keyboard really but I was captivated by the syncopated rhythms and after listening for a while I finished my drink, got up and left to continue my walking tour – blissfully unaware that I had just been treated to a private performance by Professor Longhair at Tipitina’s. At the time, I had no idea who Professor Longhair was and had never heard of New Orleans’ now legendary music venue Tipitina’s (the latter was more forgivable as the bar had been open for only a few months) but later on when I had more deeply absorbed the music and history of the city I was aghast. I don’t know for sure that the piano player was Henry Roeland 'Roy' Byrd (Longhair’s real name) but since the club was opened specifically to allow him to perform in the final years of his life I’m pretty sure it must have been – it certainly makes for a better story if it was! Seduced by the city and its music (and with lifelong friendships having been made), I returned the following summer and then in 1981-82 spent a year working as a bartender in the Gumbo Shop restaurant in the French Quarter. This time I was able to experience the city during Mardi Gras and danced in the streets, along with hundreds of thousands of others listening to the carnival’s anthems Go To The Mardi Gras and Big Chief by – of course – Professor Longhair. By now I had more of a handle on the history of the city and its music and later, at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in May, I sought out other classic performers such as James Booker, Dr John and Allen Toussaint. My favourite example of New Orleans music, though, has to be Professor Longhair’s Tipitina. The club in which I (probably) saw him that summer was created for him and named after one of his most famous songs and, as a regular visitor in subsequent visits to the Big Easy for the Jazz Festival, it has a particular resonance for me. ’Fess was born in 1918 and was a pioneer of New Orleans rhythm and blues, creating the syncopated piano style combining blues, ragtime, zydeco, rhumba, mambo and calypso that has come to symbolise the city’s musical heritage. Tipitina, which was originally recorded in 1953, derives its melody from Junker’s Blues by another New Orleans luminary Champion Jack Dupree and has become a quintessential New Orleans standard and a huge influence on those who followed, especially Fats Domino and Dr John (and latterly even the Oxford-born actor-turned-musician Hugh Laurie). According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which inducted Longhair in 1992, ‘the hum-along nonsense syllables and stutter stepping left-hand rhythm is both a symbol and staple of New Orleans music’. It is joyous, infectious stuff, and you shouldn’t listen to it sitting down. The lyrics may be largely nonsensical – and Professor Longhair, who died in 1980, never even explained the meaning of the word Tipitina, enhancing the song's mystique – but it really doesn’t matter. Just listen and enjoy. Tipitina tra la la la Whoa la la la-ah tra la la Tipitina, oola malla walla dalla [little mama wants a dollar] Tra ma tra la la
ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND: WHIPPING POST
On 29 October 1971, a long-haired motorcyclist was making his way through the Georgia town of Macon when he was forced to swerve to avoid a truck that had unexpectedly started to make a turn in front of him. Clipping the back of the vehicle, he lost control and was thrown from his machine. A few hours later he died of his injuries in hospital. Duane Allman’s life was cut cruelly short at just 24. His Allman Brothers Band were on the verge of hitting the big time after having just released At The Fillmore East, widely regarded now as one of the greatest live rock albums ever made. Regularly voted in the top 10 of the world’s finest guitarists, Allman is a ghostly presence in the firmament of rock music. Until the advent of YouTube in 2005 there was no commercially available footage of him and to many he was as elusive and mysterious as some of the old blues legends of the 1930s. I had been a fan of the band since the day after Duane died – I heard Stormy Monday played as a late-night tribute on Mike Raven’s Radio 1 show – but for over 30 years I had never actually seen him. Then one day I found a clip on YouTube and the thrill of finally being able to watch him and the band play was indescribable. The video featured a show at the Fillmore East and started off with Don’t Keep Me Wondering. I was totally mesmerised, waiting for Duane’s solo and the chance to examine his unique slide technique, which to my ears sounds heavily influenced by the vamping sound of a blues harmonica. Sadly the director didn’t share my enthusiasm, for as soon as Duane launched into his pyrotechnics the camera zoomed in on fellow guitarist Dickey Betts playing rhythm. This visual frustration has continued with the few videos that have subsequently emerged of Duane Allman in action – rarely is there any extended close-up. There are, thankfully, plenty of audio recordings to enjoy but none can match the brilliance of At The Fillmore East, which should feature in every rock fan’s collection. Back in 2020 a new album was released, taken from a recently rediscovered cassette recording of Duane Allman’s final live performance less than two weeks before his untimely death. The Final Note (Live at Painters Mill Music Fair – 10-17-71) was recorded by a young journalist, Sam Idas, who brought along his hand-held cassette player, ostensibly to record a post-gig interview with the band. ‘My only intention was to record the interview,’ he said. ‘This was a brand new cassette recorder with an internal microphone, and I had one 60-minute cassette tape. I was sitting there with the recorder in my lap, and I remember thinking: Why don’t I try this out? I can record the concert! It was a totally spontaneous decision.’ The result – very much of bootleg quality – nevertheless captures the band in top form, echoing their performances at the Fillmore. It ends with a rip-roaring 13-minute version of Whipping Post and it is poignant to reflect, as the final note fades away, that Duane Allman would never play again. Whipping Post was a live favourite throughout the Allman Brothers’ career (they finally disbanded in 2014) as a vehicle for lengthy, jazzy improvisation. A love song but hardly romantic, its theme is more one of conflict and abuse. It kicks off with a hypnotic Berry Oakley bass riff in an unusual 11/4 time signature before Gregg Allman’s vocals enter the fray… I’ve been run down and I’ve been lied to And I don’t know why, I let that mean woman make me out a fool She took all my money, wrecked my new car Now she’s with one of my good-time buddies Drinking in some cross-town bar Sometimes I feel, sometimes I feel Like I been tied to the whippin’ post Tied to the whippin’ post, tied to the whippin’ post Good Lord, I feel like I’m dyin’ My friends tell me, that I’ve been such a fool But I had to stand by and take it baby, all for lovin’ you Drown myself in sorrow as I look at what you’ve done But nothing seemed to change, the bad times stayed the same And I can’t run Sometimes I feel, sometimes I feel Like I been tied to the whippin’ post Tied to the whippin’ post, tied to the whippin’ post Good Lord, I feel like I’m dyin’ Gregg Allman, who died in 2017, described – in his fascinating 2012 autobiography My Cross To Bear – how he wrote the song while staying in a friend’s house near Jacksonville in Florida: ‘I was staying up in the very top of the house, in this sitting room with a real nice couch in it. So that first night, I laid me down to go to sleep on my attic couch, and I dozed off for a while. All of a sudden I woke up, because a song had me by the ass. ‘The intro had three sets of three, and two little steps that allowed you to jump back up on the next triad. I thought it was different, and I love different things. It hit me like a ton of bricks. ‘I started feeling around for a light switch, but I couldn’t find one anywhere. I found my way into the kitchen and it was pitch dark. I had my hands out and I touched an ironing board. I was feeling all around the counters for a piece of paper. I couldn’t find any paper or a pencil anywhere, but I did find a box of kitchen matches. ‘A car happened to go by, and its lights flashed long enough to allow me to see that red, white, and blue box. I knew I could use the matches to write with, because I had diddled around enough with art to know that charcoal would work. I figured the ironing board cover would work as a pad, so I’d strike a match, blow it out, use the charcoal tip to write with, and then strike another one. I charted out the three triads and the two little steps, and then I went to work on the lyrics.' Not everyone was happy though. The next morning Gregg’s host was furious at the state of her ironing board.
GAZ BROOKFIELD: THE OLD NORMAL
When Covid-19 first struck and lockdown imposed, the West Country folk guitarist Gaz Brookfield – a type 1 diabetic more conscious than most of his own vulnerability – was forced to abandon his live schedule and retreat to the safety of his Bristol home. But before hunkering down he invested in a second-hand MacBook and a copy of Logic software and set about writing, recording, mixing and mastering an album in his utility room. The end product – titled, perhaps not surprisingly, Lockdown – is now available to download from his Bandcamp page. An independent musician without manager, record label or agent, Brookfield has nevertheless made a name for himself on the festival circuit, appearing at such high-profile events as Glastonbury and the Beautiful Days Festival. ‘Knowing that I wouldn’t be able to get into a proper studio anytime soon, I decided to have a crack at it myself at home,’ said Brookfield. ‘My first four albums were recorded at home – they do sound like it too – so I was determined to do better with this one. ‘I promised myself that I wouldn’t write a lockdown song, because I knew that everyone would be doing the exact same thing. Then I wrote 12. Ah well. ‘To be fair, it was difficult not to write about everything that has been going on this year. The events that have transpired since the outbreak of the virus have affected every single person on the planet. Each song is about a different aspect of how the lockdown affected me, and the way that I was thinking and feeling. Hopefully some people can relate to some of it.’ The album’s dozen tracks feature Brookfield’s distinctive rocky, punky folk with titles such as The Beginning Of The End, Terrible Thing, Hindsight, I Think They’re Trying To Kill Us and The Year That Never Was. But the highlight is probably the final track, The Old Normal. A wistful, carefully crafted acoustic song, it perhaps reflects all of our thoughts as we face up to the enforced changes and privations of the pesky pandemic. I don’t know what normal is But I know that it isn’t this I can’t pretend anymore Preferred how it all was before And I value my personal space But I hate being told to stay safe And I miss the most simple of things And I’m tired of the fear that it brings My stiff upper lip is beginning to crack Sense of security under attack I can’t quite believe the way some people act I don’t know about you I just want the old normal back Some folk it brought out the best Same can’t be said for the rest The world has enough on its plate Without having to deal with the hate I don’t want to get used to the ways We all have to be nowadays I don’t ever want to be Accustomed to this new normality My stiff upper lip is beginning to crack Sense of security under attack I can’t quite believe the way some people act I don’t know about you I just want the old normal back And so say all of us.
Some of these blogs were originally published on the music website herecomesthesong.com or the newspaper site guardian.com
