Back to the Sixties at the V&A ....

We will have to trek up to South Kensington shortly to see this new exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum: YOU SAY YOU WANT A REVOLUTION: RECORDS & REBELS 1966-1970. Thats a mouthful .... The V&A site says:

This major exhibition will explore the era-defining significance and impact of the late 1960s, expressed through some of the greatest music and performances of the 20th century alongside fashion, film, design and political activism.

I have not been to the V&A for a long time, its such a massive place - but this sounds our kind of show, it runs until February next year. 1966-1970 was a crucial era for me, being 20 to 24 then, and living the London life, going to the Roundhouse (to see The Doors, Jefferson Airplane etc), the NFT, hippie underground clubs like the UFO, seeing 2001 in Cinerama and on acid, loving BLOW-UP etc  - I even lived off the Kings Road in Chelsea for a year or so then. 

It was not only the fashions, music, movies of the time that were so relevant, but that counterculture era in full swing. Perhaps the political significance of that time is too immense for a mere exhibition to encompass, as it will have to cover quite a lot, from the Paris revolutionaries to the US civil rights protests and the dawning of gay lib.

That perceptive critic Philip Hensher says there is little space given in it to feminism and the nascent gay rights movements: "The curious effect is to make it seem as if the revolutions of the late Sixties were a matter of most concern to heterosexual white people, and only at the margins were black and other non-traditional members of society allowed grudging admission". 

It does though capture some of the excitement and the liberation of that era. Being a young gay then I lived through it all, so will be able to see for myself before too long. 

As per the attached review, it seems a massive exhibition

https://www.creativereview.co.uk/decade-disruption-vas-say-want-revolution-records-rebels-1966-70/

headphones and all - well, at £16 a ticket ....

Steve Dinneen of CITY AM says:

The V&A’s David Bowie Is follow-up isn’t concerned with challenging stereotypes so much as celebrating them. Mannequins in Austin Powers getup blink with giant eyes; quotes form and disintegrate on the walls; psychedelic posters and record sleeves clutter every available surface.

It uses the same audio guide as David Bowie Is, detecting where you’re standing and fading in the appropriate music or speech, allowing the curators to micro-manage your personal soundtrack; Martin Luther King blends into advertising muzak blends into The Doors. There are objects of historical significance – the jacket John Lennon wore in the video for Imagine, the battered high-backed chair on which Christine Keeler posed naked for Lewis Morley – but Records and Rebels isn’t aimed at cultural trainspotters. Where it impresses most is in capturing the breakneck speed at which ideology, music and fashion shifted over these years, how a perfect storm of influences created a period of change unlike any before or since.

The first room looks at possible causes for the “revolution”; the erosion of trust in the establishment (evidenced here by the Profumo affair), the rise of the civil rights movement, the increasing popularity of LSD. The exhibition then races through various cultural movements – fashion, music, protest, consumerism – relying on punchy visuals rather than display cases and captions; one room features a Vidal Sassoon salon with a real-life model getting a hair cut, another recreates Woodstock, complete with faux-grass and beanbags. London is heralded as the capital of the world, with Carnaby Street its beating heart (hard to imagine now, with its rows of bland American chains).

The protest section is a highlight, a cacophony of recorded speech and angry music, divided into sections on Women’s Lib, the Black Panthers, Mao’s Cultural Revolution (illustrated with a Little Red Book and a creepy under-lit bust), France’s May 68 protests and, of course, Vietnam.

Everything is painted in broad strokes and primary colours – those hoping for nuanced discourse will leave disappointed. But nobody does mixed-media exhibitions like the V&A. Records and Rebels seamlessly fuses fashion, music, art and history into a dazzling, chaotic experience that will leave anyone under 60 with the distinct impression they were born into the wrong generation.

1971: Golden year for music?

A new tome on the key albums of 1971 should be worth investigating - as long as it is not as heavy as that recent book on 1966 (which I reviewed a while back). The author here, music jounalist David Hepworth, makes a good case for 1971 being a golden year, and looking at the key albums of that year I tend to agree - I was 25 then and deeply into music as vinyl record albums were entering their golden period.

Music fans of course will have their own golden period (that 1964-67 period was terrific for me too) - that time of their first immersion into pop culture, for younger people it may be the punk or disco years of the late 70s, but that singer-songwriter was at its peak in the early '70s as music by black artists like Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Roberta Flack and Sly Stone evolved and caught the changing times. Led Zeppelin and The Who also released some of their best work - the Zepps were not for me, but I loved The Who's WHO'S NEXT - and of course The Doors L A WOMAN (having seen them at that all-nighter in 1968, as mentioned before) then there were The Rolling Stones ... and Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton did some great stuff too and Rod and Elton were at their early best. Joni and Carole dominated the year too with their enduring albums - Carole is even doing TAPESTRY in full at a concert in London's Hyde Park this July, 45 years after recording the album ...

How about this lot all from 1971:  A golden year indeed! I had them all at the time .... and a lot still now. One could say in 1971 rock was still inventing itself, we did not realise how lucky we were to be living through it at the ideal age - but we do now. Of course the next year 1972 brought us Stevie Wonder's TALKING BOOK and seeing and meeting Joni again - see label - and '73 ushered in Pink Floyd's DARK SIDE OF THE MOON as the long-playing vinyl album took over the world - see Music-1 label. 

• Marvin Gaye – Whats Going On
• Sly & Family Stone – There’s A Riot Going On
• Carole King – Tapestry
• Joni Mitchell – Blue
• James Taylor - Mud Slide Slim
• David Bowie – Hunky Dory
• Rolling Stones – Sticky Fingers
• Doors – LA Woman
• John Lennon – Imagine
• Janis Joplin – Pearl
• Carly Simon - First album 
• Elton John – Madman Across The Water
• Rod Stewart – Every Picture Tells A Story
• Cat Stevens – Teaser and the  Firecat
• Nilsson – Nilsson Schmilsson
• Traffic – Low Spark of High Heel Boys
• Jeff Beck – Rough and Ready
• Van Morrison – Tupelo Honey
• Led Zeppelin IV
• Who – Who’s Next
• Emerson Lake & Palmer – Pictures at an Exhibition
• The Band – Cahoots
• Barbra Streisand – Stoney End, Barbara Joan Streisand

RIP, Jack Bruce

Veteran rocker Jack Bruce (1943-2-14) has died of liver disease aged 71. One third of Cream (alongside Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker) his contribution to British rock music is invaluable. Bruce played bass, sang and was the principal songwriter in Cream, and had one of the great rock voices, (like Steve Winwood). He looked good too in his prime, and did some interesting solo work after the Cream years, like his 1969 "Songs for a Tailor" album. Those Cream albums will be getting a replay this weekend - those tracks we love like "Sunshine of Your Love", "Badge", "White Room", "I Feel Free", "NSU", "Sleepy Time Time", "Rolling & Tumbling" etc. He had a new album out this year too, one to investigate.

Back in 1968 two huge rock shows in London were Cream's Farewell Concert at the Albert Hall (see below), and The Doors and Jefferson Airplane at the Roundhouse. My hippie pals and I (22 at the time) went to the Doors, as per my posts on that (Doors label), but I really wish I had gone to see Cream too ... of course they reunited briefly in 2005, for a while. We like Clapton a lot too, but Eric may have slipped into well-paid middle of the road stuff, but Jack was something else. RIP. 

Also: Alvin Stardust (1942-2014)... another great glam rocker. 

Sunday musings ..... and some bands I like

"NYMPHOMANIAC has wooden performances and a baffling plot - STRANGER BY THE LAKE is a far sexier proposition" so states The Sunday Times banner covering its film reviews .... Von Trier's latest four-hour opus is "droning, repetitive, pants-down piffle", where "frustrated by her inability to achieve orgasm she seeks the help of an amateur sadist named K, played hilariously by BILLY ELLIOT (Jamie Bell). Who would have thought the world's most famous dancing child would make the world's least convincing dom? Yet here he is, playing a proficient whipper with all the menace of Postman Pat". 

So goes the hilarious review by Camilla Long - who liked that new French gay thriller STRANGER BY THE LAKE (though it first opened in France last year) a whole lot better. It seems to be the one to watch, the dvd is out in May, I may well wait until then, as reading Andrew Sullivan's colum, has practically put one off going to an actual cinema ....

As Andrew says "You'd be forgiven for believing there was a resurgence in serious movie-making in America after all the big-budget, special effects mega-movies of the recent past", due to the current glut of Award-nominated movies of recent months, with the Academy Awards next Sunday. But, as he points out, "only one best picture nominee made it into the top 10 of highest-grossing movies of 2013: GRAVITY, a special effects movie with two bankable stars. 12 YEARS A SLAVE made it number 70, the others could not even crack the top 100! It seems the real moneymakers of the last year were comic superhero franchises (IRON MAN 3, THOR II, MAN OF STEEL) or animation (FROZEN, DESPICABLE ME 2). Food for thought there ...

Andrew also bemoans the state of cinema-going now. "There is clearly an audience for grown-up films but it is not, perhaps, in the actual cinema" .... "Most middle-class homes in America now come with vast flat screens of crystal-clear images that would have looked like something out of science fiction in the 1990s. So instead of venturing out to pay ridiculous sums of money for popcorn and a fizzy drink, endure unfathomable rudeness, get distracted by the texter two seats down and by the constant chatter behind you, and get blasted with endless promos for upcoming films that you have no interest in seeing" - or wait a couple of months and watch the same movie in your own place"? "A good film should not be wasted amid a noisy, distracting mob". 

My friend Leon made a similar comment to me yesterday, he was outraged by the prices of films in the West End of London now, ok he went to the Odeon, Leicester Square - maybe THE prime first run cinema where the prices were "£16, 18 or 22 - for a FILM" !  As i said, its cheaper to buy the dvd and you get to keep the film and get all those extras and can watch it without being disturbed.  

That other current explicit film BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOUR makes one realise how what can be shown on screens has changed, as is demonstrated by a new book: SEXPLOSION by Robert Hofler (a senior editor of Variety), which I will just have to order. It covers that era from 1966 (when a brief moment of nudity in Antonioni's BLOW-UP was a sensation to those early 70s years when suddenly everyone was stripping off, as cinema pushed the boundaries, first with nudity and then violence. It all seems a long time ago now, as time rolls on and values change. As the review of the book (by Clive Davis) says, "When Ken Russell died in 2011, news bulletins struggled to explain why a scene of two men wrestling in the nude in WOMEN IN LOVE had once seemed like the end of civilisation as we know it", likewise his THE DEVILS, still strong stuff. I remember a discussion at the then National Film Theatre in 1970 when actors on stage, including Billie Whitelaw and Romeo Leonard Whiting (in a crushed velvet blue suit) were discussing the topic of "The Actor and Nudity", a hot potato at the time - my point was when an actor is naked they are no longer than character but the actor naked. The interesting cast of characters in SEXPLOSION include the then censor John Trevelyan, whom I remember well, and Princess Margaret expressing her disapporval at SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY .... Bring it on. 

Now for a new subject: Some bands I like:

Little Feat - nice to see a new compilation boxset of their albums. Little Feat were the quintessential Americana band, developing a potent hybrid of rock, blues, funk, jazz, and country (rather like Leon Russell and his funky band then), led by their beatnik genius singer/guitarist Lowell George, a slide guitar ace and a vocalist of rare blues quality; sadly he died in 1979 at the young age of 34 - of heart failure, according to Wikipedia (I had thought it was of a heroin overdose). Back in the 70s I loved their FEATS DONT FAIL ME NOW and DIXIE CHICKEN albums (iPod staples now), with those tracks like "Rock and Roll Doctor", "Down The Road", "Long Distance Love".

Next Band I Like: Talking Heads - that arty American new wave band formed in 1975 in New York City and active until 1991. David Byrne and Tina Weymouth were the main members. A friend, Ivan, once gave me an audio cassette of them live, back in the 80s, which I must have played out. Their STOP MAKING SENSE film remains terrific, and their sound still endures and sounds as fresh as paint. I want to hear them again: "Slippery People", "Psycho Killer", "Life During Wartime", "Take Me To the River", "Burning Down The House", "Once In A Lifetime", "I Zimbra", and those albums like "More Songs About Buildings and Food".  All effortlessly funky and groovy, like Deee-Lite or Herbie Hancock or Miles Davis or Blondie or ...
Here's a treat, though it won't let me upload it just now: Liberace, Phyllis Diller, Dusty Springfield and Millicent Martin in a hilarious comedy clip. Gets one in the mood for that Liberace biopic !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VBx6DOehmc

Next musician/composer I like: Villa-Lobos,  "Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959) was a Brazilian composer, described as "the single most significant creative figure in 20th-century Brazilian art music". Villa-Lobos has become the best-known and most significant Latin American composer to date." His soaring "Bachianas Brasileiras Nr 5" and "The Little Train of Caipira" have been done so many times. I have had his "Bachianas Brasileiras" by diverse voices such as Joan Baez or Kiri Te Kanawa ...

and some club hits I like ....

And that man again: Sky Arts channel here is currently running THE DOORS IN EUROPE quite a few times, its, as per Doors label, where I am visible looking up at Jim Morrison, towering over me, back at The Roudhouse in Camden, in 1968 when the group was touring Europe with the Jefferson Airplane. I was 22 ande on acid with my hippie friends, but never saw the recording until a decade or s ago .... and nearly fell off my chair seeing myself in it. I really must try and get the image lightened and cleared up .... Jim was so sweaty in that white shirt and leather trousers ...

The long run .... the 1970s California music scene

"All alone at the end of the evening, and the bright lights have turned to blue..", "On a dark desert highway..." - yup back to "Take It To The Limit", "One of these Nights" - the limits of '70s soft rock nostalgia, as THE HISTORY OF THE EAGLES unfolded in two parts here over the weekend, as screened by the BBC, along with an Eagles concert, and BBC clips of other 70s stars  - great to see that Tim Buckley clip again where he sings "Dolphins" in 1974, with that elastic voice of his, one had to replay the album again and his GREETINGS FROM LA. Watching these clips, so many of them died of overdoses, like Tim, Little Feat's Lowell George, and Judy Sill.

Tim Buckley, 1974

It reminded me that I had planned to go see Janis Joplin at the Albert Hall in late 1970, but didn't - maybe I thought there would be other opportunities to ... having already seen Joni Mitchell there, and The Band and Blood Sweat & Tears there that year, along with Dionne Warwick and a Peggy Lee evening there. We liked Janis's Big Brother album and her solo "Pearl". (On the soul front we wee also seeing Aretha Franklin twice, Robert Flack and Otis Redding back in 1967, poster below ...). There were several more Joni concerts to see, in 1972 and 1974 when I rushed back from Italy for her new jazzy sound.

The BBC also ran a Doors documentary on the making of their seminal L A WOMAN album, the final as the group with Jim Morrison. The recently departed (RIP label) Ray Manzarek was very engaging here showing how he created those riffs for "Riders On The Storm" and those other classic tracks. (Doors label has my report on their 1968 concert I was at in London..., left).

Back to The Eagles (left) documentary: We liked The Eagles a lot then, and they certainly sold albums by the truckload. a feast of nostalgia seeing/hearing them again - all that hair and denim. Was that really Randy Meisner as he looks now? I will always love "Take It To The Limit", "One of These Nights", that whole "On the Border" album, the "James Dean" song is still rocking ... and yes "The Long Run". We also get tantanlising glimpses of Joni Mitchell, David Geffen, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, J. D. Souther, Carole King, James Taylor and others, as well as the band's fallout and re-emergence as all those egos and lead vocalists collide; that crazy life on the road certainly takes its toll! A nostalgia feast then for those who were in their 20s in that decade.(Joni label has my meeting with her and Jackson Browne in 1972 .... when we were all 40 years younger). 

The Eagles documentary has interviews with the band members past and present, live footage and backstage arguements are in the mix as the band fall apart in 1980 and did not reform until 1994. Don Henley and Glen Frey have a lot to say, and Meisner gets a look in too - I like his solo version of his "Take It To The Limit" on his own album.  Following on from The Byrds and the Burrito Brothers the Eagles were the quintessential '70s rock band, with great harmonies, lyrics and that sound.  And of course again that heyday of the vinyl album with gatefold sleeves - music label. It was the singer-songwriter era which enslaved us, before the arrival of that disco sound .... those 70s Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck albums, Rod Stewart's "Every Picture Tells A Story", Elton's first three including "Tumbleweed Connection", "Madman Across The Water" ("Tiny Dancer"), and of course The Band albums, and that unique sound by Leon Russell, Canned Heat and more ... then Pink Floyd, The Moody Blues and more.
we knew Elton John slightly then too, before becoming an aloof megastar he used to pop into Noel Edmonds' record shop on Kings Road on Saturday afternoons and chat and sign albums, just like Joni and Jackson were strolling down Kings Road, before rock stars and musicians got too paranoid about security ... ah, those early '70s Chelsea years! 
Our BBC4 channel is becoming very enterprising covering all kinds of music, from traditional jazz (loved George Melly on "Smokey Dives" - early jazz clubs) to that 1971 SOUL TO SOUL concert in Ghana, with the likes of The Staples Singers, Santana (bliss to see Carlos playing "Black Magic Woman" again), Ike and Tina and more, as well as covering the '60s, '70s. '80s electro and disco scenes. Now for that documentary "The Joy of Disco".

R.I.P.

Ray Manzarek (1939-2013) - Co-founder of The Doors, whose keyboard playing shaped the band''s individual style, and who kept the band going after Jim Morrison's mysterious death in 1971. I saw The Doors in action in 1968 - as per my posts here, Doors label - at their Roundhouse Concert in tandem with Jefferson Airplane, where I am caught in the tv documentary looking up at Morrison ..... They were one of our key groups at the time, even now hearing that long intro to "Riders on the Storm" and others, gives one a tingle. Manzarek (second left, right), who died of cancer, created that signature keyboard sound on those tracks like "Light My Fire" and "People Are Strange" and all the other hits like "Hello I Love You". I liked all their albums, particularly STRANGE DAYS, WAITING FOR THE SUN, LA WOMAN etc. Manzarek tried a solo career and kept the group going with the other two Robby Kreiger and John Densmore. He freely admitted that the Doors legacy had left him comfortably set up for life. "I haven't had to get a day job," he said. "The royalties just keep rolling in". The Doors really were as important as The Stones and The Who and those other great '60s groups and were more involved in the counterculture and opposition to Vietnam .... and hey, to get to 74 isn't too bad for a rock and roller!  Today's "Daily Telegraph" says "He provided the drive and musical discipline to shape Morrison's vague rock and roll aspirations into something more concrete. Without Morrison it is certain that The Doors would not have become the cultural force they were; yet without Manzarek The Doors probably would not have existed at all".

Paul Shane (1940 -2013) - Another popular British sitcom star departs - like Frank Thornton's Captain Peacock in ARE YOU BEING SERVED, and Richard Briers of THE GOOD LIFE. Paul Shane was a key member of the great British 70s sitcom HI DE HI, set in that '50s holiday camp. His Ted Bovis was the camp comedian, a bit of a shyster but ok really. also with Sue Pollard as Peggy the gormless chalet maid, and Ruth Madoc as the announcer Gladys Pugh "from the valleys" and that snooty dancing team Barry and Yvonne, Shane's comedian was part of that great team. We can watch HI DE HI anytime here ... Shane went on to other series and had a long career, but he will always be Ted Bovis. Right, at far right with Ruth Madoc and Simon Cadell. 

Steve Forrest (1924-2013) - Younger brother of Dana Andrews, Steve Forrest had a long career, maybe as a second (or third) rank leading man (like Robert Stack et al), like Dale Robertson (also RIP this year) he was ideal out West, 
as with Loren in HELLER IN PINK TIGHTS (left), and with Debbie Reynolds in THE SECOND TIME AROUND, plus in FIVE BRANDED WOMEN and others, as well as lots of televison work, where he was THE BARON, and in DALLAS, MURDER SHE WROTE, MALIBU etc. He also co-starred with Faye as Joan in MOMMIE DEAREST ! (right)

For Garry: Bette and me in 1972 ...

I had posted before here about seeing Bette Davis at the London National Film Theatre in 1972. Imagine my surprise today when the BBC here ran a 45 minute programme on Bette, compiled of various interviews and there is about 20 minutes footage of that NFT interview with broadcaster Joan Bakewell. I had no idea it had been recorded and never saw any of this footage before. As I remembered Bette was in good form that day and it was a splendid occasion.
Her friend Olivia De Havilland had done an interview two weeks before which I had also been to - a nice middle aged lady in a chiffon dress was smiling at us as we arrived in the foyer - it was Olivia! She must have told Bette about it as 2 weeks later Bette was appearing there, but it had not been published in the programme guide but somehow word had got out and the place was packed. My Australian friend Garry and I did not have tickets but joined the queue and got standing only tickets. But just before it began we spied 2 empty seats and bagged them. Then Bette sashayed in walking down to the stage from the back, with a fur coat slung over her shoulder, trailing on the ground behind her. It of course brought the house down ... She also answered questions from the audience and the whole thing was such a success she began touring with a similar Q & A show. 

Here though, there is just a glimpse of me, aged 26 then, at the far right of this audience shot .... just half of my actually - as left, in the blue shirt. - my sister has confirmed its me as I was then.  I knew I had been filmed at The Doors concert at The Roundhouse in 1968, but didn't realise I had been caught on camera at Bette' NFT interview too, as this had never aired here before, as far as I am aware. Those (1970-74) were the years I was meeting the likes of Dirk Bogarde, Lee Remick, James Mason, John Huston, Bette, Olivia, Ingrid Bergman, Angela Lansbury, Rex Harrison, Charlton Heston et al at these NFT discussions, often tied in to what stars were promoting then (Dirk was there for DEATH IN VENICE) and were much more amenable to meet the public - as per NFT label. .

Cream & Sunshine of your Love ...

Looking at a 'Classic Albums' programme on supergroup Cream has made me feel sorry I more or less missed them at the time in those heady years for music 1966-1968 through to 1970. I discovered them later through and play them a lot now - Jack Bruce's is one of the great spine-tingling  rock voices, along with Steve Winwood - Clapton's voice has a pleasant timbre too, we loved him then though for that guitar, like on the Aretha track "Good To Me As I Am To You" (on her "Lady Soul" album) - and then there's Ginger Baker on those drums!.

It is prime nostalgia now looking back to 1969 and 1970 when pals Stan, Joe and I were sharing a large maisonette in South London, in our early twenties. Joe was the Clapton, Cream, Blind Faith guy, while Stan was the Tamla and Atlantic and Stax fanatic and I also went for the Atlantic sound of Aretha as well as those first albums by Joni Mitchell and Tom Rush, Leon Russell, Tim Hardin, Tim Buckley, as well as The Beatles and the Stones and The Doors (whom I had seen the previous year at The Roundhouse, as per my posts on that).- - so we covered most of the bases, including classical too. What a great time we had then with great music every week - also Traffic, The Moody Blues, The Band - and I also liked Streisand, Peggy Lee, Nancy Wilson, that bossa nova sound and so much more (Miles Davis, jazz and opera came later). Now though for '60s sounds  its Cream and The Yardbirds that I turn to most - they are that era personfied. The Yardbirds are immortalised in Antonioni's BLOW-UP with Jeff Beck and Keith Relf (another great vocalist too - killed in an electrical accident as was Steve Marriott of The Small Faces) - their singles like "Heart Full of Soul" were essential, as was the BLOW-UP album by the young Herbie Hancock. All of course on vinyl - the era of gatefold albums and 45rmp singles, long before CDs and also in that pre-video age, soundtracks. We had no idea then of the technological changes ahead ...

One of my current favourites is "Ultimate Cream" a great double cd of live and studio tracks culled from their 4 albums. Cream only existed really from 1966 to 1968 - when they did that great farewell concert at the Albert Hall - I should have been there but instead went to The Doors at the Roundhouse! Well, they were both great 1968 concerts, wonder why my hippie gang and I didn't do both? Tickets for both must have been like gold-dust ... we also saw Aretha live that great year, and also in 1970 when she was at her zenith. (The Cream farewell concert looks amazing now with those psychedelic light patterns and Clapton, Baker and Bruce at their peak. Jack Bruce too had a very individual later career).

During that era though rock music was evolving and mutating at a dizzying speed as psychedelia took hold, Cream though attained staggering levels of creativity and influence that lingered for a long time, even after they have splintered into Blind Faith and other groups. That sound - like Pink Floyd's in the '70s (how we loved "Dark Side of the Moon" and "Wish You Were Here") - is so distinctive and so evocative for me now. The riff on "Sunshine of Your Love", those lyrics and mysterious songs like "White Room", "Badge", "Born Under A Bad Sign", "Spoonful", "Crossroads" etc. - white boys singing and playing the blues! I loved those zany singles like "N S U", "I Feel Free", "Rollin and Tumblin", "I'm So Glad", "Sleepy Time Time", "Wrapping Paper", "Strange Brew" etc.  Its wonderful watching them too in those old video clips or that Albert Hall concert - even the 2005 reunion had its merits, though we were all older then!  Clapton's first solo albums (like Rod Stewart's "Every Picture Tells A  Story" and Elton John's "Tumbleweed Connection"), were marvellous too until he as well sank into MOR territory ... he did though have a "Rock and Roll Heart".

Yardbirds' Keith Relf in BLOW-UP

Funny, I had no interest in heavy metel as such or groups like Led Zeppelin or Deep Purple - that was not me at all, but this Cream and Traffic and Yardbird sound defines the '60s for me as much as if not more that those Beatles or Stones. The Blues ruled then - artists like Howling Wolf came to London to make (still listenable) albums with Clapton, Winwood and all the blues boys, and I remember going to see B B King, and Jeff Beck. What an era - and its all there on the iPod!

Next musical detour: Clubland classics in the '80s and '90s ...

The Doors at the Roundhouse again ...

I am back on television again this week, as the UK Sky Arts 1 channel is doing a few screenings (on Thur 26) of that 1968 documentary THE DOORS IN EUROPE (which is also on dvd) which I posted about here a year or two ago ... Doors link. I was 22 at the time and my hippie friends and I were sitting on the floor in front of the stage - at one point Morrison was towering over me in that white shirt and leather trousers, and he was covered in sweat.   We were all bombed at the time of course - the night was shared with Jefferson Airplane who did two gigs, as did The Doors, but only the Doors one was recorded for television, pity not in colour. Perfectly 60s then ... thats me in the lower right corner. The Roundhouse in Camden was a great venue then for concerts, we also saw The Who and Traffic there among others.

Happy Birthday Joni !

Happy Birthday to Joni Mitchell - a gentleman doesn't reveal a lady's age but I will just say she is 2 years older than me (mine is on Dec 7) and she looks great in those recent photos. Here is the cover art for her second album CLOUDS - I used to have this on my hall wall when I shared a rambling apartment with two friends back in '69-'70. As per the Joni label, I met her purely by chance in 1972 and we walked along Kings Road, Chelsea, London, having a pleasant conversation. I might dig out COURT & SPARK or WILD THINGS RUN FAST or THE HISSING OF SUMMER LAWNS later ....


Here are also some other great albums from that '68-'69 time that I liked a lot, being in my early 20s. BLOOD SWEAT & TEARS album was terrific with songs I liked such as "Sometimes In Winter", "And When I Die", "Spinnging Wheel" etc / The Band's MUSIC FROM BIG PINK was played all the time when I was sharing with some hippie pals who were taking lots of acid, we went to the Doors concert and others, I saw the Band in concert in 1970 and loved their other albums too and songs like "Whispering Pines", "Long Black Veil", "Lonesome Suzie", etc. Then there was The Doors - WAITING FOR THE SUN was not their best album, but with songs like "Hello I Love You" "Love Street" etc it was pretty good. Strange Days indeed .... Tom Rush's first album THE CIRCLE GAME - marvellous to get it again recently - was spellbinding with those early songs of Joni Mitchell ("Tin Angel", "The Circle Game", the wonderful "Urge For Going") and James Taylor, among others. The sound of 1968, as well as Cream, Doors, Jefferson Airplane, Laura Nyro and "Stoned Soul Picnic", Sly's "There's A Riot Going On" etc. Then came those first Elton John albums - TUMBLEWEED CONNECTION, MADMAN ACROSS THE WATER ("Tiny Dancer" etc); that era of gatefold albums, Joni's cover art always being essential, like THE HISSING OF SUMMER LAWNS, HEJIRA, DON JUAN'S RECKLESS DAUGHTER etc.

I got to know Elton then too, after I moved to Chelsea in 1972 when he would be in the local record store every Saturday afternoon, and at Harrods as well. Stars just must have been more approachable in those days, without the entourages they all have now. That was the '70s - as Joni and James Taylor and Carole King and others reached their zenith - I discovered Tim Buckley's fantastic, elastic voice, particularly the GREETINGS FROM L.A. album, right (and then later his son Jeff) then in the '80s we embraced clubland and disco (The Pet Shop Boys, Joan Armatrading, Annie Lennox and Eurythmics, electro, soul grooves, et al) but also still going back to my roots... that late 60s was also the time of The Loving Sponful - those delicious songs by John Sebastian like "Warm Baby", "Did you ever have to make up your mind?" etc, and that California sound of The Mamas and the Papas and the the whole Byrds, Eagles and LA sound... Paul Simon's "I Am A Rock" is a particular memory from 1966 when I was sharing an apartment in Bayswater (along with early Dylan and Joan Baez), and The Supremes "You Can't Hurry Love" as I moved to Clapham, sharing with my best pal Stan and we discovered Tampla Motown and Aretha Franklin and Atlantic and went to that Otis Redding Show, Nancy Wilson and others.

I kept faith with Joni too, I practically wore out her 2000 album of standards (including two of her own) BOTH SIDES NOW - and she's still smoking! Then there have been those fascinating covers of her lyrics by the likes of George Michael ("Edith and the Kingpin"), Brian Kennedy ("A Case Of You"), Ian Shaw (a whole album of them), Ronan Keating's "River" etc. as well as the Herbie Hancock album and her own recent "Shine".

Living in the material world

1965: Imagine being 19 and loving The Beatles, but not really seeing much footage of them, as one did not have a television then, apart from loving every minute of A HARD DAY'S NIGHT in 1964 and its soundtrack album of great songs. Now it is their follow-up film and in colour! I walked into the Odeon cinema just as that sequence on Salisbury Plain screened with George Harrison singing his song "I Need You" (below). It was magical - I spent the afternoon watching it all twice, as one could in those days of continous performances.

We now have Martin Scorsese's documentary GEORGE HARRISON - LIVING IN THE MATERIAL WORLD, a fascinatng three and a half hour treat for Beatles fans and particularly those like me who always considered George the most interesting, attractive, fascinating Beatle. It is all here - glimpses of his early years in Liverpool, Hamburg, the Beatles years and when they were fracturing by the late 60s. We get lots of India, Ravi Shankar, the Maharishi and the others, as well as interviews with Eric Clapton, Patti Boyd, Paul, Ringo as well as Harrison's wife and son. For anyone who lived through that era, it brings it all back. George's songs are also detailed, he was just as good as Lennon-McCartney, those evocative titles like "Something", "Taxman", "Love You To", "If I Needed Someone" etc.

George's solo career is fully explored too, particularly those early albums like the Concert for Bangladesh and All Things Must Pass. I particularly liked his 1981 album Somewhere in England (which I have just re-ordered) with its Lennon-inspired "All those years ago" and those two lovely Hoagy Carmichael covers "Hong Kong Blues" and "Baltimore Oriole". It also has extensive interviews with George and his family, as well as The Travelling Wilburys, and Harrison's ventures into movies with Monty Python and Handmade Films and THE LIFE OF BRIAN, TIME BANDITS etc. Scorsese of course knows his music, as we realised with THE LAST WALTZ, '76 and his other documentaries on The Rolling Stones, Dylan, The Blues, Italian Cinema etc. We get clips of BLOW-UP and other footage on the swinging era.

HELP! of course now plays like a collection of early pop promos, with those musical numbers set in the Alps and in the Caribbean, edited for the camera, and Richard Lester's lovely throwaway comedy moments, and again, those songs... George's legacy though endures here thanks to Scorsese's devotion, and his laconic manner and voice shine on. It is a treat seeing this in the week when McCartney's new marriage dominates the front pages!

It all takes one back to that time when one was growing up with The Beatles, The Stones, Cream, The Yardbirds and also The Who, The Kinks, The Small Faces, Stevie Winwood and Traffic, so one had a never-ending supply of great new music every week; not to mention Tamla-Motown, Atlantic and those American groups like The Doors and Jefferson Airplane - see my report on the 1968 Doors concert at The Roundhouse at Doors label! - as well as The Band (who were terrific at the Albert Hall in 1971), Blood Sweat & Tears, and then in the early '70s all those singer-songwriters and the era of Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Carole King, Laura Nyro et al. My office in London's Regent Street, where I spent over 20 years, overlooked Savile Row and the roof of the Apple building where they did that memorable 1969 final concert, as documented in LET IT BE - if only I had been working there then!

When You're Strange ...

I wonder if that new documentary on The Doors WHEN YOU'RE STRANGE includes this moment from their 1968 concert in London, as that is me [lower right] sitting down in front of Jim Morrison in these photos. I was 22 and remember it well, as my hippie friends and I were sitting on the floor in front of crush barriers at The Roundhouse in Camden, a hip performance venue of the time (as it is again now, but it was rather more primitive back then...). At one stage a very sweaty Jim, in his white shirt and leather trousers, came down from the stage to the barriers and was walking in front of us, at one stage looming over us and that is how I remember it.

Seeing the recording a few decades later in the '90s I realised that was me [I had a head of hair then] and it was that moment when he towered over us. It was a super night as The Doors were supported by Jefferson Airplane with their psychedelic light show - they did two sessions each but only The Doors shows were recorded, pity not in colour. Still, its a classic moment from my mis-spent youth, we were all high as kites, including it seems Morrison!