Sir Paul McCartney turns 75 today - born in 1942 in Liverpool, England. He is a two-time inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the recipient of 21 Grammys. His Beatles song "Yesterday" is one of the most covered songs in musical history, and he has written over 30 No. 1 songs in his life. "Every time I come to write a song," says McCartney, "there's this magic little thing where I go, 'Ooh, ooh, it's happening again.' I just sit down at the piano and go, 'Oh my God, I don't know this one,' and suddenly there's a song."  When he was 14, his mother died of an embolism. This led to his deep connection with John Lennon, whose mother had also died when he was a teenager.

Paul & Linda @ Mardis Gras 1975 I was late posting as there was so much horror on the tv I quite forgot to post any silliness of fun, celebrating Sir Paul's birthday and I have said else where on previous posts in what high regard I hold him and it seemed significant his birthday should fall on Father's Day. "They say it's your birthday . . . . . . "

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again from an occasional series of albums, singles or music generally, bought when it came out and the Velvet Underground were no exception . . . . a neighbour to my closest friends at the time played these first few albums 'Sister Ray was never off the record player and then when it came out I bought 'Loaded' and the first time I heard  'Sweet Jane', 'Oh Sweet Nuthin' . . . " and this track classic Lou and The Velvet's 'Rock 'n' Roll'

More singles I bought when they came out and I think after before [I checked!] 'Lily The Pink' but I LOVED the Scaffold and was a fan of both Mike McGear (Paul McCartney's brother) and a life long fan of Liverpool poet Roger McGough and comedian John Gorman too. I adored the Liverpool poets and had the Penguin collection of that name and include a precocious interest in Adrian Mitchell, Brian Patten, Adrian Henri et al  and the guys here largely thanks to John Lennon I think with his two books and again bought both in paperback when they came out and even spoke and wrote in mock Lennonese from his writing for many a year at school. I went on to buy Grimm's 'Rockin' Duck' too and continued to follow McGough's output and 

So guys, 'Thank You Very Much'!

The Scaffold
Thank You Very Much
1967

Friday - celebrate the end of the week with anther single I bought when it came out and still have  . . . . I bought everything by DEVO and thought them the cleverest, funkiest and most sardonically cryptic band I have ever heard . . . . . . I even followed the Mothersbaugh Bros and admired their work on TV shows like Rug Rats!

It ain't Lee Dorsey!

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DEVO- Working In A Coal Mine

 . . . . and a couple of nice recordings of UK bands from Big O this morning . . . 
 a TEXAS class act from Glasgow 2017 BBC FM radio recording so clear as a bell . . . . . . 

Texas - Glasgow 2017

and a set from local band RADIOHEAD as there is a 20th (yes twentieth!>?!?**) anniversary re-issue of OK Computer!! 

Radiohead - Denmark 2017

and still more . . .this is worth a listen and I always enjoy meditative guitar and lovely voices . . . . . . . who doesn't?!

Fletcher Tucker :: Cold Spring

Seven years ago, songwriter Fletcher Tucker went to Big Sur. 

Settling into the rugged landscape, where the Santa Lucia Mountains jut sheerly before the Pacific Ocean, Tucker had an idea in mind: inhabitation. He did not want to live on the land, he wanted to live with it. To hear him tell it, his aim was mystical, primal, and psychospiritual. After studying farming at the famed Esalen Institute, he and his wife made a home in Big Sur, and it was there he gathered up the naturalistic drones, field recordings, and psychedelic folk songs that make up his new lp, Cold Spring.

Calling it an album about nature feels limiting. It is, more so, a reflection of an artist’s total immersion in the idea of “place,” its spectral songs often swallowed up in the shadows of giant redwoods, the coos of owls, and the howls of far-off coyotes. “I trek this trail hunting for songs,” Tucker sings lowly alongside the high clear voice of Molly Erin Sarlé of Mountain Man on “I Become Smoke,” “But the mountain’s song consumes me as I limp along.” 

Tucker assembled the record over the course of four years, building on foundations of pump organ, acoustic guitar, banjo, saxophone, synth, human voices, and percussion. But the album’s roots stretch back further, to his youth, when he spent summers at Big Sur. A native of Northern California — he was raised in a town called Pacific Grove — the wildness of Big Sur spoke to Tucker, like it has so many artists before him, from ethnomusicologist Jaime de Angulo and poet Robinson Jeffers to writers Henry Miller and Richard Brautigan. The place has haunted his music for some time, lingering over the recordings he’s made as Bird By Snow, but with Cold Spring he fully explores the terrain. 

here . . . . . . . . 

Again . . . . more excellent music from 

Mary Lattimore / Elysse Thebner Miller :: And The Birds Flew Overhead

The so-called ambient music movement was kicked off sometime in 1975 when Brian Eno heard a tape of eighteenth-century harp music. More than four decades later, Mary Lattimore is connecting the dots, creating beautifully becalmed settings for the harp. The prolific player’s latest release, And The Birds Flew Overhead (recorded live by the NYC Taper crew last year at Three Lobed Records’ “Sweet Sixteen” concert in Raleigh, NC), sees Lattimore forming a Heavenly Music Corporation (to borrow again from Mr. Eno) with keyboardist Elysse Thebner Miller. And the music is definitely heavenly, with the duo stretching out over the course of two sidelong pieces that ebb and flow in hypnotic fashion. But it’s not just heavenly. Like the best ambient, there’s an underlying tension and restlessness throughout that envelops the listener, as Lattimore and Thebner lock in and zone out. Boundaries are broken, new territories discovered. words / t wilcox

Aquarium Drunkard often does this it seems and either I am being left behind as to what is happening or somehow it is parochial music references that I am missing. Or both!
Either way AD often posts fine fine music that is by folks I do not know
A life long Eno fan this piece struck all sorts of resonances (sic) with me . . . .it is plain and simply lovely!
Play this on a sunny bright shiny day with the breeze blowing the curtains (drapes!?)

Of course like many I went through a voyage of discovery with much American music different genres and some I have stuck with and some have left me behind (R'n'B anyone?used to sound quite quite different!) and soul was no exception from Ray Charles through to Otis and Aretha to albums like 'This Is Soul' in 1968 (?) I loved that music and we had many dance parties at or around school that celebrated such dance hall classics as these but this included Jimmy Smith, Nina Simone too and 'Cool Jerk' and the Stax and Motown explosions and many many early Mod influenced soul boy musics. An early single release was this on Junior's birthday and 'Road Runner' was a double 'A' over here with 'How Sweet it is (Too Be Loved By You)' on the other side which I preferred, much like Otis' 'Amen' which had 'Hard To Handle' on the other side . . . . . . . 

Born on this day: June 14, 1931 - Saxophonist and vocalist Jr. Walker (born Autry DeWalt Mixon, Jr. in Blytheville, AR). Happy Birthday to this Motown legend on what would have been his 86th Birthday.

LOU REED - 1992 

Lou Reed - Seattle 1992

Great boot from Big O this morning and from the Magic & Loss period the entire first set being devoted to that tour de force album. . . . the second set more varied and including tracks from 'New York' (Dirty Boulevard & Beginning of a Great Adventure) and a couple of classics [Sweet Jane, Satellite of Love and Rock 'n' Roll]  The recording of this is exceptional for an audience job and I appreciate the notes from Big O explaining how the JEMS tapers recorded this and it is in tribute to Jared from JEMS who passed away last Oct 2016. Great great recording and a fine set with Lou at his best with perhaps his finest line up for his band in later years

Lineup:
Lou Reed - guitar, vocals
Jimmy Scott - background vocals
Rob Wasserman - bass
Michael Blair - drums
Mike Rathke - guitar

From BK for JEMS who said:

"And if we talk about the performance, Lou seems really happy, making jokes between songs, introducing them and even explaining why he wrote them (like Harry’s Circumcision). About the music: if i were you, i wouldn’t have any doubt about this. This is a solid performance, and if we take the fact that this concert (if we take away the time between songs and the encore break) was almost 3:30 hours of music, so I guess that makes you wonder: who performs for almost four hours these days?"

obituary notice for Jared of JEMS