Amen Corner - If Paradise Was Half As Nice • The Immediate Anthology (1969 UK) | Rockasteria

Amen Corner - If Paradise Was Half As Nice • The Immediate Anthology (1969 uk, mod psych blue eyed soul )

 

The band is named after Amen Corner, a small residential area on the edge of Bracknell in Berkshire*  Initially they specialised in a blues and jazz-orientated style, but were steered by their record companies into more commercial pastures.

Their first singles and album appeared on Decca's subsidiary label Deram, but they left at the end of 1968 to join Immediate,  where they were instantly rewarded with a No. 1, "(If Paradise Is) Half as Nice" (originally a song by Lucio Battisti) in early 1969,  followed by another top five entry with the Roy Wood composition "Hello Susie".

After recording a live album, Farewell To The Real Magnificent Seven, and a final single, a rather premature cover version of The Beatles' "Get Back",  they disbanded at the end of 1969.

While sax players Alan Jones and Mike Smith went on to form Judas Jump, guitarist and vocalist Andy Fairweather-Low led Dennis Byron (drums), Blue Weaver (organ), Clive Taylor (bass) and Neil Jones (guitar) into a new band, Fair Weather.  The band scored a UK No.6 hit with "Natural Sinner" in 1970 and recorded one album before disbanding a year later.

Fairweather-Low went on to a successful solo career in the 1970s, notably with the top ten hit "Wide Eyed and Legless" (1975);  he became a regular player with Eric Clapton, George Harrison and Roger Waters. He also worked with The Strawbs and the Bee Gees.

Amen Corner's Decca back catalogue has been reissued as part of 'The Collection' series; and their Immediate work, as a double CD, including their singles, live album and material recorded for an unreleased studio album, under the title "If Paradise Was Half as Nice: The Immediate Anthology".

Tracks
Disc 1

1. (If Paradise Is) Half As Nice (Jack Fishman, Lucio Battisti) - 2:47

2. Hey Hey Girl  - 3:03

3. Hello Susie (Roy Wood) - 2:36

4. Evil Man's Gonna Win  - 4:02

5. Get Back (John Lennon, Paul McCartney) - 2:41

6. Farewell To The Real Magnificent Seven  - 6:36

7. Lady Riga  - 3:18

8. Proud Mary (John Fogerty) - 3:06

9. At Last I've Found Someone To Love (Dominic King) - 3:47

10.Scream And Scream Again (Dominic King) - 3:36

11.Sanitation  - 2:46

12.Mr Nonchalant  - 3:31

13.The Weight (Robbie Robertson) - 5:50

14.Welcome To The Club  - 3:05

15.Recess (Fletcher Henderson) - 2:29

16.When We Make Love (Dominic King) - 2:51

17.Things Ain't What They Used To Be  - 2:07

18.Long Chocolate Limousine  - 3:13

19.Natural Sinner  - 4:14

20.(If Paradise Is) Half As Nice (Jack Fishman, Lucio Battisti) - 2:49

21.Hello Susie (Roy Wood) - 2:55

22.Hey Hey Girl  - 3:06

23.Evil Man's Gonna Win  - 3:40

Tracks 2,4,6,7,11,12,14,17,18,19,22,23 written by Andy Fairweather Low

Disc 2 

1. Introduction-MacArthur Park (Jimmy Webb) - 3:39

2. Baby Do The Philly Dog (Fred Smith, Sherlie Matthews, Walter Ward) - 2:36

3. You're My Girl (I Don't Want To Discuss It) (Dick Cooper) - 2:17

4. Shake A Tail Feather (Andre Williams, Otha Hayes, Verlie Rice) - 1:45

5. So Fine (Johnny Otis) - 2:44

6. (Our Love) Is In The Pocket (George Clinton, Joanne Jackson Bratton, Rose Marie McCoy) - 3:16

7. Penny Lane (John Lennon, Paul McCartney) - 3:04

8. High In The Sky (Anthony King) - 3:15

9. Gin House (Fletcher Henderson) - 3:51

10.Bend Me Shape Me (Larry Weiss, Scott English) - 4:02

11.(If Paradise Is) Half As Nice (Jack Fishman, Lucio Battisti) - 3:20

12.Outro-Stag-O-Lee - 2:59

The National Welsh Coast Live Explosion Company LP

Amen Corner
*Andy Fairweather Low -Vocals 
*Neil Jones - Guitar
*Allan Jones - Saxophone
*Blue Weaver - Keyboards
*Mike Smith -Tenor Saxophone
*Clive Taylor - Bass
*Dennis Byron - Drums

Amen Corner - If Paradise Is Half As Nice (1969)

*The Amen Corner is a three-act play by James Baldwin. It was Baldwin's first work for the stage following the success of his novel Go Tell It on the Mountain. The drama was first published in 1954

Being Welsh the band were named after a weekly disc spin (DJ gig at the Victoria Ballroom (later to become The Scene Club) in Cardiff, Wales - Andy Fairweather-Low

Martin Simpson & June Tabor - Flash Company | HERBERG DE KELDER

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Martin Simpson & June Tabor - Flash Company

HERBERG DE KELDER

Martin Simpson & June Tabor (Live 1979) Flash Company

Fleetwood Mac - Trinity [Bare Trees] Danny Kirwan | jt1674

  . . . . . . . in tribute to Danny Kirwan another causality of the time, Danny ended homeless and troubled . . . . . . . . . we don’t forget him. Guitar legend . . . . . . . quite an experimental piece here of Danny finding his way I believe . . . . . . 

https://www.tumblr.com/jt1674/833185806822916096/fleetwood-mac-trinity

Elvis Costello and The Attractions - Temptation [Get Happy!] | jt1674

  . . . . Booker T tribute and then some

https://www.tumblr.com/jt1674/833263795351814144/elvis-costello-and-the-attractions-temptation

James Rigby - LAKOTA SIOUX TUNED DGDGBD

 Back to the Music!

LAKOTA SIOUX - BY JAMES RIGBY 

TUNED DGDGBD 

SONGS FROM THE WATCH - A Compilation of 25 Original Guitar Fingerpicking Pieces in Open Tunings, Taken from 7 Albums, Written over the last 6 years by James Rigby

CLICK ON BLUE LINKS BELOW TO SAMPLE 8 ALBUMS 

-----------------------------------------------------

SONGS FROM THE WATCH 

https://jamesrigby1.bandcamp.com/.../songs-from-the-watch...

Dangerous Minds: ANISH KAPOOR: There's a Man in Chicago ‘Bean’!

 ART

Man in Bean: The most bizarre urban legend of Chicago

Will Howard

Thu 12 November 2026 23:00, UK

Credit: Dangerous Minds / Pixabay

The official name for one of the newest Chicago landmarks is Cloud Gate, but let’s be real here, it’s The Bean, isn’t it? 

Anish Kapoor may have intended to create something that, when looked at during the right moment of the right kind of day, looks like a piece of the sky drifted into the middle of Chicago, but when it was unveiled in 2006, people were not happy with it. Which makes a certain degree of sense: Chicagoans are protective of their city, and such a strange-shaped thing that seems like nothing more than a pretentious selfie spot probably was a tough sell at first.

However, that’s the thing about things that look weird. They eventually just become a part of the furniture and, just like everything else in Chicago, get defended like one of their own. It’s only something that someone who knows their Portage Park from their Lincoln Square can take the piss out of. Yet since 2025, it’s been the centre of a quite frankly baffling piece of performance art. One that began on, of all things, the site of Lollapalooza that year.

To anyone who saw it out of the corner of their eye, it would have looked like a protest campaign the likes of which the festival hasn’t seen since its heyday at the forefront of 1990s alternative culture. A group of serious-looking young people marching around the festival site with placards and megaphones. It’d get your attention, and then you’d realise they were talking not only about a popular Chicago tourist trap… But the young person apparently trapped inside it?

If you went up to talk to them, they’d tell you all about the information they’ve been supposedly fed that during the work’s construction, Kapoor had stolen a baby and snuck it inside the sculpture, where it has been living since 2004. The Man in Bean movement, as they called themselves, were calling upon the alderman of Chicago’s 42nd Ward, Brendan Reilly, to admit to the ruse and release the trapped person, who by now was past 20. So they said.

This is clearly a joke, but like all jokes of this kind, it spread. The Lollapalooza starting point was a cunning idea that meant that there was a captive audience waiting to post about such a bizarre conspiracy theory on social media. The social media platforms made for the movement exploded in popularity, creating a community of people who were all dedicated to treating this surreal idea as true. People would then one-up each other with stunts until finally, someone got it in their head to actually contact Reilly.

I should say that thousands of people got the idea to contact him because suddenly, his Chicago office was inundated with demands to release the man in the bean. Reilly tried to take this in good grace and said that he couldn’t because there was no man in the bean. Chicago mayor JB Pritzker tried to get in on the joke by refusing to confirm or deny whether someone was in the sculpture. This obviously made things worse because now, the community had a new rallying cry.

Big Bean was trying to silence them. They were on the right track.

This culminated in 2026 when a new wrinkle to the story was found. “Intel” gathered by “higher-ups” within the conspiracy said that there was a trap door in the bottom of the piece and that if it could only be moved a couple of inches, then the trap door could be accessed and “life-saving supplies” could be dropped off for the state’s resident. Life-saving supplies like, of course, “a single pickle”.

250 people ended up descending on The Bean on November 8th but were unable to budge it. That said, I may be lying to you. You never know who could be in Big Bean’s pocket.

The End of the "Man In Bean” Conspiracy

Powder Blue

Keith Richards on the Great Blues Masters | Don’s Tunes

Keith Richards: I found out is that all of the great players are basically such gentlemen. B.B. King and Muddy Waters, both straight up guys. They've got nothing to fear. They always encourage. They're always concerned about other people. They're never self centered. When I look back and think, "Shit, I played with those guys," that's enough. I don't want no money. I mean, thanks for the money, but to have Muddy Waters say to you, "Hey, show me that lick you did..." Everybody's a perennial teenager when it comes to stuff like that.

I don't think you could ever do the blues too many times, quite honestly. It's one of the most fascinating forms of music I know, and I listen to a lot of styles. It's such a honed-down form. It travels well. It can pick up on what's happening and be a viable vehicle for songwriting. It's probably the most important thing that America has ever given to the world. From Leadbelly to B.B. King to Buddy Guy and all the stops in between, it's just such an amazingly flexible form.

The Stones brought two opening acts on the 1969 tour, B.B. King and Ike and Tina Turner. “When we played Baltimore,” said King, “there was a white lady that came up with her children and she said, ‘You’re B.B. King.’ I said, ‘Yes, ma’am.’ She said, ‘Have you ever made any records?’ I said, ‘Yes, ma’am.’ She said, ‘Well, my kids and I like what you did. Can you tell me where I can get one?’ I mean, she wasn’t joshing me at all, she was serious. And I’m thinking, ‘I’ve been making records since ’49.’”

Photo: Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and B.B. King Backstage, Chicago, IL, 1969 by Glen Craig

Don's Tunes



Roots of British Folk songs continued . . . . . . . .

 bit of a too maudlin a start? Here’s some authentic British Folk music . . . . . . . .!!!

The Cordwanglers Daughter!

[K. Williams Esq.,]

Pin Up of The Day!

 (1954) Bettie Page © Bunny Yeager

 

Leonard Cohen - Famous Blue Raincoat (Live in Dublin 2003)

 The algorithm threw dear Glen Hansard covering this partially but here is the master at work in Glenn’s home town wonder if he saw him . . . I suspect he did . . . I lifelong obsession like mine own

Leonard Cohen - Famous Blue Raincoat (Official Live in Dublin 2013)