My desert island discs
I was just listening to the radio today as someone was trotting through their desert island discs and telling me why they had selected their favourite pieces of music.
What an impossibility.
How could anyone limit their selections to so few? Music has been an integral part of my life. It reflects my views and feelings. It has helped develop my whole perspective on life. Right from the early days of my youth I have poured over lyrics and immersed myself in the emotion and wonder of music. It is a universal language. If I had to choose between music and literature for which has had the biggest effect on my development I think I would be hard pushed to decide.
Anyway – you will be pleased to know that the BBC has decided to do a special three hour Desert Island Discs just to accommodate my essential choices because they felt that they were so profoundly brilliant. Unlike with everyone else they are going to play all my selections in their entirety!
How about that!
It still presented me with huge dilemmas. What did I leave out! I’d need at least a thousand hour programme.
Anyway, they weren’t about to do that, though I think they were quite keen. I was forced to make decisions.
These are they:
Bob Dylan – It’s Alright Ma (I’m only bleeding)
Bob Dylan was that fulcrum point around which Rock Music turned. He not only brought poetry, stories and a different structure into Rock Music, he brought politics, meaning, social commentary and fury.
This is a song that sums all that up. The poetic imagery of birth and death, the wide vista, the anger at the plastic society and how we were all being knocked into shape, the hypocrisy and greed he described all seared themselves into y brain.
I could have chosen a hundred Dylan songs but this is the one that used to send my adolescent, rebellious brain into paroxysms of anger as I deciphered what he was talking about.
Roy Harper – The Lord’s Prayer
Another epic thirty minute song/poem that burned with passions. A commentary on society, a glimpse into the mind of a human being from a different age, a yearning for something more.
Again I could have chosen a heap of Harpers but this one can keep you occupied for a lifetime. The repeating musical coda provided by Jimmy Page’s guitar that sounds deceptively simple but is fiendishly complex.
A song to tease the mind on many levels and music that soars.
Stiff Little Fingers – Suspect Device
The best of the Punk Bands. The brought the Irish troubles into perspective. Their anger was channelled into raw statements of fury. Punk was a brilliant vehicle.
What was so good was the clever use of words coupled with the searing guitars, frantic pace and social message. It moved me.
Woody Guthrie – This Land is Your Land
Woody was a phenomenon. He was the first major songwriter to take that social stance and tell the stories. He was so clever.
I love this song, particularly with the often missing verses about private property and dole queues. It should have been America’s anthem.
Woody is an international treasure.
Jimi Hendrix – Voodoo Chile (Slight return)
And still no-one comes near to that genius of guitar prowess and excitement. I can’t help but wonder what brilliance we would have seen from him. His only limitation was his imagination. I have never seen anything so exciting.
Jimi epitomised Rock Music to me – the brash excitement, showmanship and expertise. Voodoo Chile sends shivers through me.
Nick Harper – The Magnificent G7
Nick is a brilliant song-writer who is different to his Dad. This is a beautiful, haunting, delicate song with a profound message.
Our leaders are only people. World policy is ultimately sorted by seven white men in the G7. They create the mountains of grain and countries of misery. Perhaps they could do it better?
What a clever song with such strong sentiments.
Son House – Death Letter Blues
The Blues is a favourite music of mine. I always go back to it and find it satisfying. I think I like the rawness and lack of sophistication most. It is authentic in a world of overproduced plastic. It is full of emotion and passion and tells the stories of a different life.
Son House was one of the originals. He taught Robert Johnson to play. Without him there might not be Rock Music. I was bowled over by Death Letter the first time I heard it. That was at Hammersmith Odeon on a Blues package tour – Son House was the star of the night at seventy nine years of age.
Elmore James – Shake Your Moneymaker
Elmore took the old acoustic bottleneck style and electrified it. What came out was a scorching sound that blistered your ears. He rocked before rocking was invented.
I would have loved to have spent an evening in one of those sweaty Chicago night-clubs bouncing to Elmore as he scattered those slide notes off the walls and decorated them with his anguished vocals.
Shake Your Moneymaker was a belter.
Captain Beefheart – Big Eyed Beans From Venus
I first saw and heard Captain Beefheart back in 1968. On that tour he blew my world apart. I had never seen or heard anything like it. He took the delta blues, dusted it with lysergic acid and created some cosmic blues that jangled your neurones.
I think you have to see it performed live to really appreciate the phenomenal synthesis of poetry, rhythms and music. The complexity and juxtapositions of guitar and vocals with that driving bass and drums plays tricks with your head. It was as exciting as Hendrix and that is saying something.
I was never the same agin!
Big Eyed Beans from Venus is one of Rock’s greatest songs.
Country Joe and the Fish – Who am I?
I think Joe McDonald has a claim to possessing the best voice in Rock Music. Not for its power but its clarity and quality. It is best heard on numbers like this introspective anthem and the anti-war dirge – Untitled Protest.
I thought this band was one of the most extreme, political and original to come out of the West Coast Acid Rock Scene. They epitomised what it was all about for me with their first three albums.
Who Am I? is a delicate song with depth and beauty. It sends me.
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Immaculate taste, as always … though if you were restricted to 8, which? and worse, when Kirsty asks you which one you’d save from the waves … ?
Heavens Dave – I still have nightmares about the ones I left out. I’ll have a think.
F*ck it, they’re all good!
Sure are. It depends on your mood as to which is best at any second.
Reblogged this on Opher's World and commented:
This was fun!
I don’t think Son House made any difference to the advent of Rock music.
Robert Johnson’s recordings didn’t get any exposure until 1961 with the first time around compilation ‘King of the Delta Blues Singers’. Rock music was some 13 years old by 1961.
If only you’d go back a bit and find some really good Blues people. House just wasn’t.
I’m not too certain of the accuracy of Nick’s take on the G7 (G8 in 2017). Good song though.
Teaching Robert Johnson to play, influencing Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf probably had some effect. Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry came in from that side. Robert Johnson was not known before 61 but had considerable influence on blues players in the area I’m sure. It all went into the melting pot and when people like Arthur Crudup influenced Elvis it was all part of that general Mississippi scene.
I have listened to all the old Blues Guys and have albums of most of them. I love the Blues and yes, there are better players, but I prefer Son House to any of them
It is all a matter of personal taste – not how good they technically are.
I love G7 too. A brilliant song.
You have given no consideration to Fife and Drums, Jump Jive, Rag Time and Swing Jazz from the early 20s.
Rock ‘n Roll originated from the piano and not the guitar, Opher.
Rock ‘n Roll was well established long before Chuck Berry or Bo Diddley ever came on the scene. These guys were technically latent pretenders!
Therefore, I disagree with your beliefs of origin.
I’m absolutely confident that I am dead right on this.
You think you have albums of most of them. Actually, you will have albums of only a few of them. Only a few of them were ever pressed onto LPs for the modern record players.
That’s Alright Mama’ was a piano song? Eddie Cochran a piano man? Carl Perkins? Really? Buddy Holly? Elvis a piano man?
Rock ‘n’ Roll had lots of sources and no clear beginning. Some piano – some guitar. Bo and Chuck were part of that first wave.
You could say R@R was established in the 40s R&B depends on your definition. Or C&W. Hank Williams or Jackie Brenston with Ike Turner? Big Joe Williams or Roy Brown. Fats Domino or Joe Turner?
Who cares. It was great stuff that fed off each other to create Little Richard and Jerry Lee.
Of course most blues wasn’t recorded. Pedantic again! Of course I’ve got Fife and Drum, Jump jive, jug bands and jazz and vaudeville.
You’re always confident you’re dead right! Even when you’re wrong! What is it with this aggressive snideness. Your Achilles heel?
See Jackie Brenston & his Delta Cats “Rocket 88” and Joe Turner “Shake, Rattle And Roll”, both from 1951.
4 years earlier than both Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley.
4 years was an eternity back then.
Bill Haley and Louis Jordan too – but not really Rock ‘n’ Roll – precursors with some of the ingredients. You can go well back into the 40s for other examples – particularly in Jump Blues. I’ve got them all. But so what? The real thing was in the mid fifties.
Yet more spurious claims of “have them all”.
My arse you have them all.
That would be a small warehouse of records – you quite obviously don’t have that sort of collection.
Your physical collection is no bigger than mine and I don’t make such spurious claims.
You probably have some mp3’s that may or may not have accurate recording dates. That’s not having anything.
Bill Hailey didn’t have a record out until 1953, so you can count him out.
Louis Jordan is a completely different style, he also did Country which is a no-go.
You are incorrect about it being the mid-50s.
This is only when it became mainstream popular which isn’t the same thing is it?
Your comment was clearly about the “advent” of rock ‘n roll, so that’s exactly what I am talking about.
Why aren’t you?
What is the most important ingredient of rock ‘n roll?
I’m beginning to think that you don’t actually know.
Do you even know?
When I ran my History Of Rock adult Ed course I made it my business to collect all the major examples of the transition periods and rarities associated. That’s what my audience really wanted to hear and learn about. So I have all the major examples from that period.
All spurious and debateable as to the advent. Who gives a fuck. It’s the music that counts not the geekie silliness. Same with the silliness about what is the ‘the most important ingredient’. The backbeat was what gave it the edge but ‘most important’? Only a fool would narrow it down. There were lots of branches of RnR stemming from a multitude of sources that all coalesced and cross-pollinated. It was all there in R&B and C&W in the 40s leading into the 50s but did not gel together until Elvis lit the touch paper and set the ball rolling. You need to lighten up and stop getting so working up about spurious ‘facts’.
Just because you decided to run some course does not automatically by virtue award such with any credibility does it? Obviously not.
How many years ago was this course of yours?
How on earth would you be able to collect such a mountain of records in your vicinity of where was it, Hull? Not exactly rock ‘n roll heaven is it, crammed with record shops, is it?
You exaggerate to such extremes.
As for your take on C&W – no, it really does not possess the right ingredients.
As for Elvis – that’s absolutely false and if this was the sort of rubbish you were spewing out to these “students” aka short-changed sorry souls, then I feel terribly sorry for them wasting so much valuable time.
Elvis was simply the acceptable white youthful face. Had he been black you would never ever have heard about him.
That whole Memphis Sun Records outfit was run by racist mafia KKK morons.
You could have done better than that.
Actually, in truth, your story there is akin to saying Christopher Columbus discovered America.
We know better, don’t we?
Andrew for heavens sake. What do you know about me? I’ve been collecting records for fifty seven years – London, LA, Hull, Manchester, Leeds – where-ever I go. It has been a major part of my life. Plus Hull is a big city with a number of great record stores and a community of fanatical record collectors and record fairs. Give it a break. Scotland is hardly the capital of the universe for record collecting.
I ran my course for a number of years, a number of times with huge success. The only course to increase in numbers as it went along. The last thing I did was six years ago!
It doesn’t give me any definitive credibility. It just means that I enjoy it and know a bit. I love the music – that’s all! It has been a big part of my life and I’ve studied it!
So what?
I’d disagree that Hull is a big city. It’s obviously not.
However, half a dozen little independent shops isn’t quite what I was referring to.
You are showing your ignorance. Why did you say Scotland”? That’s a heck of a lot of stuff isn’t.
You are also definitely showing your ignorance regards the demographic of UK record buying.
Glasgow, Opher, in terms of records sales is fucking HUGE!
It has THE largest demographic of record sales per capita in the UK.
It has the most number of live music venues per capita in the UK.
It has the most number of theatre venues per capita in the UK.
It has the most number of night club venues per capita in the UK.
It has the most number of live music pubs per capita in the UK.
(It used to have to most number of pubs per capita per square mile in the world)
(It used to have the most number of cinemas per capita per square mile in the world)
Is that why the very large VIP Record Fairs always come to Glasgow every March and October, yet never to Hull?
It must be that there’s simply no demand for records here or something. I must have missed something there.
FFS, you said that you had about a dozen people on your wee course. I’ve got more than that hanging out as spectators when I do my demo producing for wanna be shoe gazers. I’ll put stuff on the PA between takes to break the mould, shake some action, disperse the inertia, whatever it takes. I should start handing out certificates, too, if that’s the case.
Yes, Opher, I too have been collecting for 46 years or whatever. I too have thousands, all in hard copy, original pressings. I also studied it, too, if ‘studied’ is the applicable word. I just didn’t hand out certificates to people that sat and listened to my opinions. I never stood there lecturing on my opinions either. It would never have crossed my mind to do that. I’m not that precious. I did play stuff in the shop and if they asked I would inform them, but that was it for me.
Sometimes my own taste bores me. I’m looking at 5 to 6 thousand albums sometimes and I really don’t want to hear any of them.
Now you see once again, without knowing how things operate you make gross assumptions and fill in the spaces with your own fantasies. You imagine a classroom situation with me pontificating. If I had done that it would hardly have got off the ground would it – let alone been popular. It was a sharing and enjoyment of the music with me leading it. Tpotally different to your presumption. Great fun. Great people and highly enjoyable.
You’re still up on high looking down through your nose, still adopting the high and mighty pose. You’re not that precious?
Opher, get real. At some point you are going to have to stand there and introduce the record and explain why you are playing it, right? It surely cannot have been done any other way. Whether or not it was enjoyed by all in equal measure would be subjective. Whether or not the people were ‘great’ or not had absolutely nothing to do with it and such comment is irrelevant.
We had much the same thing at school.
Interactive, discussion and participation — plus of course playing some great sounds with some talk around it. Some of them were ‘experts/fans’ of one particular band/genre and would do their take. Became a bunch of friends. I’ve been meaning to do it again but I’ve never found the time.