...We had Spike Jones on the box...
...She said, "I can't take the way he singsBut I love to hear him talk"Now that just gave my heart a throb To the bottom of my feetAnd I swore as I took another pullMy Bessie can't be beat
Just how live is a "live" album?
I was once told, by someone claiming to have "inside" knowledge, that the 1987 Simple Minds live album "Live in the City of Light" had had everything from the original recording stripped away - apart from the kick drum - and then brand new vocal and instrumental studio tracks added for its eventual release.
Of course, I have no way of proving if that was true, but it's a fact that many "live" albums have been fettled, rejigged and manipulated so that what you end up hearing is different to the original performance. The reasons for such jiggery-pokery are many and varied. There could have been a bum note, an out of tune vocal, a faulty mic, etc, etc. The degree of studio modification can also vary greatly, depending on how the finished product is intended to be heard - glossy and perfect, or warts 'n' all.
Anyway, here's one of my absolute favourite live albums - actually two albums from the same gig that should have been released as a double, instead of a year apart, so as to preserve the running order and keep all the material in.
Together, Lou Reed's 1974 "Rock 'n' Roll Animal" and 1975's "Lou Reed Live" document the last show of the 1973 tour to support the "Berlin" album - at Howard Stern's Academy of Music in New York. The tour took in 25 venues in Europe and the US, with at least the last one putting on two houses, with the second house providing the live recordings.
Lou Reed - London - The Berlin Tour 1973
Reed had a top notch band for the tour, with Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner on guitars, Peter Walsh on bass, Pentti "Whitey" Glan on drums and Ray Colcord on keyboards. Hunter and Wagner, in particular, were of special note as they became the "go to" pair when you wanted top drawer guitar pyrotechnics - as acts such as Aerosmith, Kiss, Peter Gabriel and Alice Cooper found that they did on various occasions.
Opinion about the band and their interpretation of Lou's material is divided. Some saw the whole concept as bloated heavy rock that was at odds with Reed's relatively "subtle" approach, whilst others reveled in the spectacle of him fronting a powerful and highly technically proficient band. As Reed reverted to less polished and more low key tour musicians soon afterwards, it's fair to say that he would have probably preferred a less "in yer face" approach.
Dick, Lou & Steve
At one point in the tour, Lou went to see Hunter and Wagner and, according to Wagner, asked them to tone things down a bit: "He came to us during the tour and made us stop playing to the audience
and entertaining them because we were stealing his show. We didn’t mean
to, we were just hot!"
Hot?
Hot???
Hell, they were almost on fire - especially during their intro to "Sweet Jane".
Originally written by Steve Hunter during his stint with Mitch Ryder, and first played in the Chambers Bros band, this intro is now highly regarded in its own right. In the Lou Reed Band form, it was used as walk on music for Lou and then segued into "Vicious". At some point in the tour, Lou decided to make "Sweet Jane" the opening number on occasion, so the intro started switching between the two songs. As Hunter explains, "It just so happens that “Vicious” is in E minor and “Sweet Jane” is in E major, so it worked because the last chord is the five of the E."
As for Lou, well, he's still Lou here - half singing, half talking and sounding on good form, even though he was, by all accounts, rather chemically enhanced during this tour. Clad head to toe in black leather, and made up with white face to look like some sort of mutant Marcel Marceau, Lou didn't exactly leap about, as some surviving footage (see below) of the Paris gig from the tour reveals. During "Walk on the Wild Side", he starts off sitting down to sing and slyly masturbates his mic, which is about as theatrical as he seems to get.
Lou - Paris - 1973
As far as I can tell, there's virtually no studio chicanery in the final released albums. Fortunately a good soundboard of the show exists and I can't hear any glaring differences, except in terms of EQ and balance. The band is incredibly tight and tends to dominate the performance, although if there's going to be a voice over the top of Lou Reed material being played, it's best that it's Lou's and, indeed, it just wouldn't be the same without him.
Anyway, wouldn't it be just great if the whole show was one complete album and with all the songs in the correct set order? But where would you find something like that?
Look no further...
Another guest post from Babs!
In 1969 and 1970 [states Babs, after consulting her Filofax] Kent Records released
‘Anthology Of The Blues’, a 12-volume LP series of recordings originally
made for the Bihari brothers' (Lester, Jules, Saul and Joe) Modern
label in the 1940s and 1950s.
It was in 1969 when Jerry (my future husband) and I first came across the ‘Anthology Of The Blues’ series, at Canterbury Records (it’s still in business) in Pasadena, CA, which was a short walk from California Institute of Technology. Back then, it was run by a gentleman named Lenny, who was a hysterically funny man and had expert knowledge of Jazz. One Saturday, Jerry and I stopped in to look through the record bins. When we entered the store, Jerry greeted us and told us he had some new releases of old Blues records. Lenny showed me ‘Vol. 1 The Legend Of Elmore James’ looking at the track list on the back of the record, there were a few tracks I was familiar with, but most of them I had never heard. It was the same with ‘Vol. 2 Memphis Blues’ and ‘Vol. 3 California Blues’. Lenny told us they weren’t selling that well, and he thought it was because of the covers that mostly featured African-American children. I told Lenny, I thought they were charming, and Lenny said, “Well, you know how some people are” and rolled his eyes. Over the next few months we bought all the volumes released in 1969, and the 1970 releases in Boston, MA. where we moved to further our studies.
Three of the Bihari Bros with BB King
The Bihari brothers, and Modern Records
In
the late '40s and early '50s, Modern Records was able to attract many
fine blues performers to the labels, including B.B. King, Roscoe Gordon,
Elmore James, Smokey Hogg, Lightnin' Hopkins, Little Willie
Littlefield, Jimmy McCracklin, Jimmy Witherspoon, Pee Wee Crayton and
John Lee Hooker. Modern also leased masters from Sam Phillips in
Memphis, and was the first label to release material by the legendary
Howlin' Wolf. A split between the Bihari brothers and Sam Phillips
occurred when Phillips started leasing the Wolf masters to Chess in
Chicago
A very young Ike Turner
In the mid-'50s Joe Bihari made several trips into the
Deep South to gather field recordings of living, breathing juke joint
blues players, and the recordings he brought back weren't quaint,
archaic folk pieces but raw and raucous slices of electric blues.
Bihari's guide in all of this was a young Ike Turner, who was Joe’s
right-hand man, chauffeur, and played piano (not guitar) on many tracks.
The resulting material is moonshine loose, charmingly rough, ragged,
and they hit like the proverbial “ton of bricks”!
In common with
almost all record companies at the time, the Biharis would often add
their names to the writing credits to get some of the cash from
publishing royalties. Jules was ‘Jules Taub’, Joe was ‘Joe Josea’ and
Saul was ‘Sam Ling’. For example, John Lee Hooker’s ‘Turn Over a New
Leaf’ is credited to Hooker/Ling. On the other hand the brothers were
music fans, and very approachable characters, as many of their artists
have noted. The Modern label went bankrupt in the mid 60s, so the
brothers set up Kent Records, which bought the Modern group’s back
catalogue. They continued producing new Blues and R&B records until
Saul’s death in 1975, at the age of 56.
For the most part, I'm not a
big fan of Blues compilations, as I find them pedestrian or fine for
beginners, have the usual hits such as Elmore James ‘Dust My Broom’,
Muddy Waters ‘Mannish Boy’, John Lee Hooker ‘Boogie Chillen’ and other
Blues classics we’ve all heard thousands of times. ‘Anthology of the
Blues’ is different, while it has Blues giants such as Elmore James,
John Lee Hooker, B.B. King and Howlin' Wolf, the songs included are what
I like to call: “deep cuts”. It also has lesser known Blues artists,
but equally talented artists, who should be more well known, including:
Willie Nix, Big Bill Dotson, Charlie Bradix, James "Peck" Curtis and
many others. In my eye, these twelve LPs belong in every Blues
collection.
So here’s the 12-volume series: ‘Anthology of the Blues’
Yes, 12 albums - count 'em!
Vol. 1 The Legend Of Elmore James
Vol. 2 Memphis Blues
Vol. 3 California Blues
Vol. 4 Blues From The Deep South
Vol. 5 Texas Blues
Vol. 6 Detroit Blues
Vol. 7 Arkansas Blues
Vol. 8 Lightnin' Hopkins: A Legend In His Own Time
Vol. 9 Mississippi Blues
Vol. 10 The Resurrection Of Elmore James
Vol. 11 B.B. KING 1949-1950
Vol. 12 West Coast Blues
Enjoy!
[When Babs has finished walkin' the dog, puttin' on the Ritz, doin' the mashed potato 'n' dustin' her broom, she'll be along to ask you a question. Answer correctly and this fine set of albums can be yours.]
Another guest spot - from SitarSwami this time. Keep 'em coming!
What's there left to say about Neil Diamond? [enquires SitarSwami] Love him or hate him (and if you're a true fan you can simultaneously do both).
A very young Neil
He learned his Brill Building lessons well. For a practical demonstration of N.Diamond songwriter, revel above & below the early 1960's into the mid 70's covers -- plus one fluffy pillow co-write with Jeff Barry & Ellie Greenwich recorded in the 90's.
Ace records released a similar single disc collection a number of years ago and you'll find 23 of those tracks here. Which leaves 33 unduly neglected gems begging to be heard.
Almost half of these were not recorded, or at least not released, by Neil and some of the highlights are those songs: My Babe, Sunday & Me, The Boy With the Green Eyes, Don't Go Away Mad (an exclusive UK release by Bobby Vinton) and my favorite, It Comes & Goes (which is so Spectorishly sensational that Mercury records issued it twice in October 1965 as by Sadina on it's subsidiary label Smash, and under Sadina's real name, Priscilla Mitchell, on Mercury.
Many of these 45's are big ticket items and for the price of a download you, dear listener, can hear them all.
[Somebody will be along soon to provide a link to Mr Swami's N.Diamond collection. In the meantime, please avail yourself of the HOLE's well-stocked bar (CASH ONLY) and its snack vending machines.]
The dawn of the 1980s saw punk on its last legs and ushered in musical trends such as new romanticism, synth-pop and new wave - rather meaningless terms, as most labels are.
Very broadly speaking, the new decade saw far more emphasis on electronics, with increasing use of synths, sequencers, samplers and digital recording, but this didn't mean that great pop music wasn't being made any more. In actual fact, a lot of 80s pop didn't rely all that heavily on the new technology - melody and "real" instruments were still in abundance as the decade progressed, and rather than taking over, electronics were just one more tool to be used.
At the time, however, the 80s struck me as a rather lame decade for UK pop, but looking back it was a surprisingly fertile period, as I hope the following compilation illustrates. I've deliberately kept it to UK acts and erred on the side of relative obscurity. Many other, more famous, 80s acts made great pop records, too.
Anyway, here's an 80s mixtape for the digital age...
The Specials - Ghost Town
Two Tone was a thing in the late 70s and early 80s and the Specials were right up there for several years. This more reggae track was their second UK number one and addressed the recent riots, and their roots in urban decay. It's a surprisingly sophisticated track that was built up from much longer sections and then edited down to make the finished article. It was recorded on an 8 track machine because the studio's 24 track offered too many possibilities to producer Jerry Dammers. The track switches from film noir theme music, to dub, to spooky vocals, to a sort of Latin section and back again, but it still manages to flow coherently. It's not a particularly 80s sounding piece and still sounds vital today.
Go West - Don't Look Down - The Sequel
This is far more "80s" in sound, and synths are definitely to the fore - nice crunchy ones. It's a well-crafted song and both melody and lyrics stand up to close scrutiny. There's some lovely guitar in there from the late Alan Murphy (dig the stereo panning at the end of his solo!) and Peter Cox' gritty vocals give the whole thing a real edge. I don't know if the bass is sequenced or not, but it plays a big part in driving the track along. "Don't look down, girl - not when you're holding aces." Great pop music!
Double - Captain of Her Heart
Lots of subtle string synth pads in this that serve as a lush backrop to the simple vocal, soprano sax and piano lines. Very jazzy in feel and the melody is strong, wherever it comes from - the vocals aren't always carrying it, which is not necessarily the norm. What really lifts the whole song is the way it keeps changing from a minor key (A minor) to a major one, but B in this case, not the more obvious A major. It really opens the whole song out and makes the chorus soar.
Danny Wilson - they liked a hat...
Danny Wilson - Mary's Prayer
When I first heard this, I thought "Steely Dan!", as the singer's voice has a similar nasal quality to Donald Fagen's. Indeed, the song wouldn't sound totally out of place on the first Dan album, with its clever use of subtly altered chord sequences. Synths creep in with a sequenced xylophone(?) in the verse, and brassy flourishes in the chorus, but again the emphasis is on conventional instruments. It even has a proper ending with the last lines of the chorus slowing down to a finish. Strong melodic pop that took three releases to finally become a hit in the UK (and even a minor one in the US) - their only one.
Nick Hayward - Blue Hat for a Blue Day
No synths on this - when you hear a marimba, it's a real marimba, the accordion is a real accordion and the mandolins are real mandolins, etc, etc. Hayward used to front Haircut 100, who cut some great pop singles, and this track from his debut solo release doesn't disappoint. Cut with some top UK session guys - Dave Mattacks on drums, for example - it's a well-constructed song with an interesting middle 8 (rather more than 8 bars, in fact) that ends with a brief violin solo and a marimba vamp before returning to the verse and chorus.
It Bites - Calling All the Heroes
From before they went a bit proggy (as featured antecedently in the HOLE), It Bites' first single saw them touted as a pop band, with the requisite floppy hair-dos and pegged trousers. Lots of synths on this, although guitar, bass and drums are still very much in evidence. The vocals get most of the attention in the production, with harmony lines emerging from various places in the stereo spectrum. There's no guitar solo, which is surprising as lead singer Frank Dunnery is a monster player. I admire that sort of arrangement decision - what's there is there for the song. There are plenty of sections in the track which maintain interest and this album version had to be butchered a bit to cut it down to chart-friendly length.
Black - The Sweetest Smile
Black was Colin Vearncombe, and if he reminds you of Scott Walker, you're not alone. It's a sparse song, fleshed out by a blanket of string synths and featuring a soprano sax (soprano sax again???) and a lovely fretless bass line. It's basically about a really shit year Vearncombe had - a divorce, a couple of car crashes, family illness, being dropped by his record label, and friends having problems - so it's not exactly cheery stuff. Still, who says pop always has to be upbeat and optimistic? Unfortunately he didn't survive a third car crash in 2016, when he was poised to make a comeback.
Don't come the cowboy with Kirsty, whatever you do
Kirsty McColl - A New England
A Billy Bragg song with a couple of extra verses written by him for Kirsty's version, this is a stunning piece of jangly pop. The guitar player has never been identified, but Johnny Marr of the Smiths is the most likely suspect. I can't hear a synth in there anywhere, just lots of gorgeous harmonies from Kirsty which make any sort of extra chordal keyboard padding totally redundant. Just multitracked guitars, bass, drums and harmonies to die for - what more does a pop fan need? Kirsty was UK folk music pioneer Ewan McColl's daughter - tragically killed when a speedboat went over her whilst swimming on holiday in Mexico.
The Bluebells - Young at Heart
Essentially country music - prominent fiddles and a harmonica - played to a sort of mutant polka beat. Somehow a marimba - or something like that - snuck (sneaked?) in there, but it works. A hit twice - number 8 in 1983 and then number 1 in 1993 after being used in a VW TV ad. Fiddle player and Clark Gable look-alike Bobby Valentino sued and got co-writer credits for his fiddle lines and solo. One of those slightly irritating songs that you can't help singing along with when you hear it.
The Thompson Twins - Hold Me Now
A 3-piece named after two Tintin characters who weren't twins (with me so far?), the Twins carved out quite a career for themselves throughout the whole of the 1980s, with thoughtful pop songs ranging from very electronic, almost Moroderish, grooves to tracks like this which is one of their slower numbers. Basically a piano-led ballad which explores a relationship which really ought to be better than it is, it's quite a sparse production which serves to emphasise the vocals. Again, there's a sort of marimba type instrument in it - a real one as far as I know. What is it with 80s bands and tuned percussion? Apparently, even that miserable critic and professional git Christgau admired this song, but don't let that put you off this fine pop nugget.
China Crisis - King in a Catholic Style (Get Up)
Steely Dan can be referenced once more but much less obliquely this time. The album this is from was produced by a certain Walter Becker, who'd heard one of the band's earlier songs and put himself forward as producer. In fact, he's actually credited as one of the band on the album, and it's rumoured that his playing is all over it. As it stands, "King" is a snappy little pop song with a convoluted bass line, sequenced synths and metronomic drumming, with a sort of fusiony guitar solo in the middle. Once again, the melody's what really makes for a good pop song.
Nik - about to give us a guitar CHUKKA
Nik Kershaw - Wouldn't it Be Good?
This opens with a guitar "CHUKKA" (always a good sign!) and launches into a bevy of harmony guitars which then lead into a synth playing the chorus melody. Apparently, Kershaw used 20 guitar tracks on this record, attempting to get a Brian May type guitar orchestra. The guitars stay through most of the song and the solo with guitar and synth (and possibly a sax) playing the line in unison is superb. The coda is particularly noteworthy with the chorus and the verse played simultaneously. Kershaw made other great pop records - and still does - but I'm especially fond of this track. Those meaty guitar harmonies just blow me away every time.
Diesel Park West - Like Princes Do
Guitars all the way - rather jangly ones, too. There's a Stonesy vibe in the way the guitars handle the rhythm, but the overall feel is a little bit punky. It would probably have done well 20 years earlier...until you hear the McGuinnish raga rock solo. Not a synth in sight on this 1989 track, so after all the technological innovations of the preceding years, there was still room in the charts for guitar-based pop. Terrible band name, though - what were they thinking?
So, that's a baker's dozen of great 1980s pop songs which may have escaped your attention. I could easily have chosen as many again, and your suggestions to add to the list are, as ever, welcome.
Oh, and try and spot the deliberate lie - it'll come in handy later on!
The HOLE is pleased, nay proud, to present its first guest post. May it be the first of many!
There’s nothing I can say [admits Babs], or add to what has been already been said, about Django. So instead, take a trip down memory lane with me, back to the late 1950s, in Brooklyn Heights, New York when I heard Django for the first time.
My older brother, who is five years older than I am,
and was a teenager in the late 1950s, had a modest record collection of
rock 'n' roll records by Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Bo Diddley and Gene
Vincent. In my brother’s room was a small record player which did the
job, but in our living room was a large wooden console (which little
Babs was not allowed to touch) that had amplifier-powered stereo
speakers, with a turntable and radio hidden under a lid in the center,
and on the bottom were two doors that when opened revealed a TV set, and
it played records very loud.
One wintry Sunday afternoon, my
brother and I decided we’d go downstairs to play records in the living
room. As we went down the stairs, I smelt cigar smoke and heard Frank
Sinatra singing. When we got to the living room, my father was relaxing
in his recliner, with a cigar in one hand, and a Johnny Walker Black on
the rocks in the other. My brother asked my father if we could play some
records, my father told him to play them in his room, and my brother
abruptly marched off in a huff. As another song started to play, my
father said to me, “Babs, may I have the pleasure of this dance?” which
was something we did all the time; my father would get on his knees,
we’d dance, he’d spin me around, and we’d laugh. When the record ended,
my father put on another record, which had no lyrics, was very fast, had
guitar and violin, which made me smile and giggle. My father laughed,
and told me, “The man playing guitar was a Gypsy, who lived in a
horse-drawn caravan in France, and only had two fingers on his left hand
that he could use” all of which sounded very exotic to my eleven or
twelve-year-old brain. To this day, Django always makes me smile.
Django Reinhardt: The Classic Early Recordings
Here's
a five CD set, with each CD covering over 70 minutes, excellent sound
quality, from JSP Records, covering around 125 78's of Django's
material.
Vol. 1 are 1934-35 recordings featuring Stephane
Grapelly. "Connoisseurs will note that the first two Odeon tracks are
issued here for the first time at the correct pitch".
Vol. 2 are the London Deccas (1938 & 1939).
Vol. 3 are the 1938-39 Paris Decca recordings.
Vol. 4 includes the Coleman Hawkins session.
Vol. 5 covers the 1937 HMV sessions, plus the Garnet Clark recordings from 1935.
As
it says on the front of the box, "The music on this CD set has been
restored from the best available 78 copies, which have been carefully
checked for pitch by the sound engineer Ted Kendall. His work is so good
that it can literally be said that Reinhardt has never been heard with
such presence before. The guitarist's fingers can be heard moving across
the fingerboard, and there is a new resonance as he plucks each note"
Enjoy!
[Babs will be along in a while to ask a question that will unlock this treasure trove of Django goodness...if you answer correctly, of course.]
Before Big Star, for Alex Chilton, there were the Box Tops.
Here they are with "The Letter" on "Upbeat" in 1967. Watch Alex try and hold it together - and eventually fail - as the rest of the band starts mugging for the camera.
This clip never fails to amuse.
A few years ago, I discovered a new term (to me, at least) for something with which I've been very familiar for many years - earworms.
An earworm is a piece of music that gets inside your head - seemingly from nowhere, although something could start it off, I suppose - and stays there, playing away on a loop until it disappears or is, perhaps, replaced by another. It can be anything musical - nothing is too clichéd, tasteless or banal to become an earworm.
Today's earworm was a Chick Corea tune - "Armando's Rhumba" - which first appeared on his 1976 album "My Spanish Heart". Of course, it sent me straight to the Jazz folder on my grossly distended hard drive and I listened to it, in an attempt to exorcise the worm. According to some, it's not actually a rhumba - more of an "energetic samba". Not that Chick would have had any fucks whatsoever to give, I'm sure.
After playing the track a few times, I then listened to the rest of the album as I got on with a few jobs.
As well as Chick on assorted keyboards, "My Spanish Heart" features Jean Luc Ponty on violin (on the earworm track only), Stanley Clarke on (mainly upright, thank goodness) bass, Steve Gadd on drums, Don Alias on percussion, Chick's wife Gayle Moran on occasional vocals, a string quartet, a brass quartet and Michael Narada Walden, who's credited with claps. Claps? Yes, and they're pretty much essential to the percussive drive of virtually the whole album. Sometimes they're the only percussion there is. It's predominantly an acoustic effort, although this being 1976, and with Chick arriving at the studio with a pantechnicon full of keyboards, there are some synths - very dated sounding they are, too.
I was first turned on to the album by the pianist in the French jazz/chanson band I'm in. He raved about it and burned me a copy which I enjoyed very much. However, as a double vinyl album originally, I found it rather overlong and some of the synths sounded rather cheesy, so I've made my own single album version.
I've been ruthless.
Out went almost every track with a synth on it, which meant that after lengthy consideration for about two minutes, the entire El Bozo Suite was ripped screaming from the twitching patient. A few tracks with more synths were then excised and tossed in the bin labeled "Fusion waste".
I also played about with the running order. The title track is now a sort of prelude that leads in nicely to "Armando's Rhumba". Following are a trio of tracks that set up the Spanish Fantasy Suite and there's a postscript in the form of "the Sky" - the track omitted from the first release on CD.
After this musical bloodbath, what's left is a 46 minute single album that's very acoustic piano driven and seems to keep the spirit and essential elements of the original double, but with less of the dated cruft. I've even managed to include a track that was on the vinyl edition, "The Sky (Children Song No. 8 / Portrait of Children Song No. 8", but later dropped, so that it could fit on the first CD version. A later CD bonus track that added nothing to the album was dropped for this version.
The overall feel after the chopping is much sparer now, with fewer of the synth textures and more of the space that's left, due to much of the instrumentation now only consisting of piano, upright bass and those all-important claps. Needless to say, the musicianship is superb and some of the passages where Corea and Clarke play in unison are simply breathtaking.
If you have something you'd like to share, please don't hesitate!
Articles of all kinds are welcome - reviews of music, film, literature of all varieties, reminiscences, anecdotes and opinions.
All the Major asks is that they're written in plain text - eg in Notepad - as the blogging interface here is idiosyncratic to the point of being flaky.
Length is unimportant - content before size!
Just send your screed to:
themajorshole(at)mail.com
Barring libel and defamation, anything and everything will be considered for publication.
Well,
the name of this blog comes from lyrics in the title track of an album
by the excellent UK prog band It Bites, called "Once Around the World".
The hole in question is a hideaway, a retreat, a bolt hole
where the Major welcomes you with a glass or two of champagne. It's a
place to get away from the hurly
burly of the world in general, and at least one person found love there...
However, I hope this blog is just a
place where people will come to relax, chat and share all manner of
things - music, books, stories and experiences.
So, welcome to the Major's Hole!
The
song in question is a behemoth of a track running at just a hair under
15 minutes, but seamlessly divided into sections so that there's always
something new coming along. Furthermore, there's no aimless guitar
soloing, just great ensemble playing from the 4 piece band.
The
lyrics describe one day in a life - getting up, having breakfast,
reading the paper, walking the dog, driving on the motorway, going to
the Major's hole - where a heart was lost - for a glass of champers and then on to the horse races,
before going home. Yes, it's sometimes a bit twee, but it's quite an
English sounding track and the subject matter seems to fit well.
At
this time, the band had Francis "Frank" Dunnery as their lead singer
and guitarist and he handles both jobs superbly, as well as being the
writer of this particular track. OATW was a departure for Dunnery and
the band, whose previous debut album was very poppy. Even on their
second album, there's a pop sensibility which gives the title track a
melodic quality that makes the 15 minutes flash by.
Now this is where
things go a bit awry. Does Dunnery actually sing, "The good old Major's
hole" - or is it "home"? For years and years I've thought he sang
"hole", but some lyrics sites have "home". I'm going to stick with
"hole" as a) it seems to fit the idea of the Major having a little
hidey hole and b) I'd have to change the blog title and it wouldn't be so
intriguing.
Listen to the track here and tell me what you think - "hole" or "home"?
To win a handcrafted digital copy of the album this track is from, just describe how you start your day.
For a time back in the mid to late 1960s... ...Mike Bloomfield was as significant a player on the US white blues scene as Clapton was on th...
