Nick Harper: The Wilderness Years – part of the intro

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Foreword

I’ve known Nick Harper for most of his life. I was a young student living the bohemian life of the sixties underground and he was the young son of Roy Harper. I’d just been knocked for six by Roy’s take on music, society and the universe at large and he invited me round to glimpse his life. Nick was part of it.

Since then I’ve been a teacher, writer, parent, partner, traveller and avid devotee of rock music.

I love guitar playing. When it comes to guitar playing I have seen all the greats up close playing in small halls – from Jimi Hendrix to Bert Jansch, Jimmy Page to Peter Green, Davy Graham to Eric Clapton; but there is one who stands out for me. His sheer brilliance is beyond anything else I have seen. What Nick Harper can do with a guitar is magical.

To quote Rob Adams from the Glasgow Herald – ‘If you haven’t heard Nick Harper you are missing out on one of the musical phenomenons of our age.’

The strange thing is that the bending of the strings, the tuning and retuning of strings within songs, the creation of new upside down chords and even the surround sound delay is never a gimmick. It isn’t showing off. It actually works to create great music and the tricks are integral parts of the songs that always add to the composition. He is recreating the sounds in his head. Nick expands upon the possibility and generates extensions of improbability.

I have only ever seen one person capable of such a thing and he was Jimi Hendrix. Nick’s limitation, as with Jimi, is merely the extent of his imagination. It goes without saying that Nick’s imagination is of the scope of galaxies. It is phenomenal.

I have been fortunate to observe Nick’s talents develop over decades and I never get tired of the crispness and range that his fingers tease or pound. He can make the guitar thunder or trill with delicate melodies. Nick produces music you can get lost in.

If it were only the guitar playing it would be wonderful. However he is so much more. Nick marries this instrumental genius to a voice that is incredible in range and texture and a song-writing ability that is up there with the best. He now has a catalogue of songs that would challenge any great songwriter of our time. The content is both poetic and meaningful. What more could you possibly ask for?

Nick’s live performances are impressive. He is a showman who deploys wit and cutting humour along with sharp observation. He is a warm, sensitive but forceful man whose sensibilities are complex, always intelligent and forthright. You never get short-changed at a Nick gig. He puts his soul into it.

The one mystery surrounding Nick’s career concerns the level of success he has so far achieved. It boggles me to think that he has not risen to the heights, received the recognition and walked away with awards. He surely deserves it. His time will undoubtedly come. Skills like his do not go unnoticed forever.

I suggested writing a book with and about Nick many years back but he was not keen. Nick is a modest man who neither seeks to inflate his achievements nor crow about them. He simply did not feel he had done enough to warrant a book. There was also the business side of it. Nick naturally shies away from any aspect of the business that is concerned with money making. He abhors anything smacking of exploitation. He feels that he is privileged to be able to do what he does; which is to create and play music. That should be sufficient. He is grateful when anybody enjoys his music and still amazed that he has a ‘career’ and people actually pay to see him. Nick refuses to see himself as a part of the music business or his songs as a commodity. Despite the fact that he knows he has to make a living he is not about to exploit his supporters by producing ‘product’. He does what he feels is right. He writes songs because they are an expression of how he feels. He is the same person on and off stage. There is no eye on the market.

Bob Dylan Bringing It All Back Home: Rock Classics – part of the Intro

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Introduction

I can confidently state that Bringing It All Back Home is, without a doubt, one of the most important albums in the entire history of rock music. I will explain why.

   Not only was it ground-breaking in the way that it fused elements of blues, folk, rock and poetry, but it was also incredibly influential on the sound and writing of the major acts of the time. Without Bob Dylan and the album Bringing It All Back Home, there would not have been the impetus for bands such as The Beatles, The Stones or The Beach Boys to later construct hugely influential albums, or, at least, they would not have been as experimental and adventurous. Neither would we have had the incredible bodies of work by major singer-songwriters like Neil Young, Roy Harper or Bruce Springsteen. The sixties underground scene would not have happened without its explosion of styles, from psychedelic and heavy metal to prog rock, country and blues, its anti-war and civil rights protest and complex poetic songs. This album changed the face of rock music. ‘Artists from the Beatles to Bruce Springsteen have cited Bob Dylan as one of the most important influences on their music making and songwriting, noting that Dylan helped them see the possibilities of a different kind of lyric writing that was more intimate, personal, and autobiographical than what they found in early Rock and Roll songs.’ Stephanie Mooneyhan

   Paul McCartney said: ‘I’ll never be able to write like Dylan. He thinks of these fantastic word combinations. It doesn’t matter if you get lost in one of his compositions, you can get hung up on just two words – the man is a poet.’

   The album came out at a crucial point in time. This was 1965, the midpoint of the sixties, a turning point, and Bob Dylan was the fulcrum on which rock music turned. Before Bringing It All Back Home, we had rock, R&B and blues-based beat music (as with The Beatles and The Stones) and, lyrically, more sophisticated folk music. After Bringing It All Back Home, we had a new world of possibilities. The album opened up a theatre of opportunity by melding together the two distinctly different genres, and, in the process, creating an entirely unique style of music, a different way of songwriting and a different structure to popular music. With new sounds, new ideas, and a new attitude, nothing would ever be the same.

   The new, polka-dotted, shade-wearing, long, curly-haired, skinny-trousered, booted pop star, with a white strat hanging around his neck, cut a mean figure. Just like James Dean or Marlon Brando, he oozed charisma – confident, articulate and uncompromising. Rock music had a new rebel, and this time, he had a cause.

   This wasn’t just a new sound; it was a new genre, a new style, a new vibe and a new culture. Bob Dylan was matchless. He put poetic lyrics to a novel kind of rock music and coupled that with style and attitude. The result was devastating. In the process, he blew both worlds apart, sent the music media into a spin and broke through into the world of serious academic consideration. The sober world of the adult mainstream media was beginning to take note. What had been considered a juvenile entertainment of no intrinsic worth was now being written about, reviewed and discussed in pillars of the establishment, such as The Times. Rock music had come of age. His poetry was analysed in universities. His views were taken seriously.

   Where Robert Johnson was fabled to have stood at the crossroads at midnight, selling his soul to the devil in exchange for becoming the best blues musician on the planet, Bob Dylan chose to stand on a motorway intersection in the stark noon sun daring all the gods and devils in the universe to take him on. He required no divine intervention.

  New things do not come out of nowhere. They ferment out of various sources, slowly bubbling and fuming in nascent juices until they burst forth in naked inspiration. Thus, it was with Dylan’s new baby. He gathered the ingredients, allowed them to stew and marinade until they were ripe, then boldly, gleefully and even recklessly, thrust this new progeny into the spotlight.

   Into the gumbo soup of Dylan’s electric storm, the various ingredients had been brewing for years. All that was required was the spark of genius to ignite the inferno. Like Shakespeare’s witches, he threw in the ingredients: the eye of rock ‘n’ roll, the newt of folk, the heart of Beat poetry and the glands of social comment. Hubble bubble toil and trouble, rhythms click and poems double. Out of this cauldron of fusion, something vital and highly original emerged to send rock music, and youth culture, reeling into the latter years of the sixties revolution. Dylan was the catalyst and Bringing It All Back Home was the vehicle.

The Beatles: White Album – Rock Classics

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Introduction

1968 and the winds of change were gathering pace. The first tsunami of psychedelia had swamped the scene, saturating everything in its acid-drenched glow. Everything was bright colours, kaftans, afghan waist coats, scarves and swirling paisley. A great surge of euphoria, optimism and possibility was rampant. Experimentation was in. The youth of the day were rising up to overthrow the conservative values of their parents, displacing the grey conformity and class structure with an anti-establishment defiance and radical outlook. This was the sixties revolution. It shot straight out of the feedback drenched music and poetic lyrics into art, fashion, design, film, magazines and philosophy. Hedonism was in. All things were possible. The war and rationing were a fading memory. I lost count of the number of times one of the ‘older generation’ disapprovingly told me that he’d fought a war for the likes of us. Not that we cared. War was a product of the old ways. This was the new age. We had different values. We were doing it differently. Sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. Keeping it real.

   The Beatles had already ridden the crest of that psychedelic tsunami with their majestic Sgt Peppers Lonely Heartsclub Band. Now was the time for the follow-up.

   Ethnic was in. Hitch-hiking was the mode. The whole world opened up. The hippie trail brought back the Moroccan incense, Indian fabrics and new rhythms, new instruments. Everything exploded.

   This was the time of equality and freedom. Careers were discarded. Long-hairs had formed a new culture. Instant recognition. Adopted slang from the world of Jazz where the black musicians had begun calling themselves ‘Man’ in response to the whites disparagingly calling them ‘Boy’. This was the time of openness and sharing – joints, food, a floor to sleep on, all to the background of ‘our’ music. This was the time of the album, of what the media called ‘Adult Orientated Rock’. Except that it wasn’t adult orientated at all; it was aimed at us, youth; it expressed our values and feelings.

   1967 had been the year of great change. Psychedelia had swept through with the Pink Floyd’s piper, Hendrix’s experience, Traffic’s fantasy and Cream’s gears. Acid rock had stormed in from the West Coast. Bringing the strange days of the Doors, Captain Beefheart dropping out, Zappa freaking out, the Byrds being notorious, Love forever changing, Country Joe and the Fish applying electric music for the mind, and Jefferson Airplane taking off.

   The music had evolved. In the 1950s, rock ‘n’ roll had been viscerally subversive; in the 1960s that had taken on a more sophisticated cerebral direction. Whereas rock ‘n’ roll had been music to madly jive to, psychedelia was music to get stoned with, to lose yourself in its intensity and nuance, to dance expressively, listen intently with friends or sit with headphones on and absorb the sounds and words. An album had to be pawed over, concentrated on and sucked dry of all that it contained. The cover and liner notes were studied and analysed, the lyric sheet searched for meaning and the music internalised through repeated listening. Albums were sacred.

   But by 1968 the rot had started. The tendrils of exploitation were creeping in. Revolution was big business. Money bred excess. The values were already being undermined and trust tested. The casualties were beginning to surface. Reality hit home. In San Francisco in October 1967, they held a march for ‘The Death of Hippie’ in protest at how the values had become commercialised. The ‘Summer of Love’ was officially dead. The sharing culture, love and peace, equality and freedom, was tainted.

   Incredibly, The Beatles had not only risen with the tide but had adopted a leading role in this revolution.  What had started as a standard rhythm and blues (r&b)/rock ‘n’ roll cover band, had developed into a highly original teeny-bop band that had taken the whole world by storm with their energy, originality and effervescent personalities. That might have been it if they had not been so clever and creative, so eager to absorb new ideas and develop. Their infamous meeting with Bob Dylan in August 1964, the experimentation with pot and acid, the delving into Indian music, folk, country, electronic and blues coupled with their interest in Beat poetry, art and fashion, set them apart from their contemporaries. They absorbed and evolved; always enthusiastically pushing the limits. The songwriting became more varied and sophisticated with greater depth of poetic lyric coupled to expanding musicality. The folkie essence of Beatles For Sale evolved into the harder pop-rock of the soundtrack Help and thenveered off into greater elaboration with Rubber Soul whichsaw the beginning of a new type of songwriting ultimately exploding into full ferocity in Revolver. The Beatles had transitioned. By 1967, with the help of George Martin and all the possibilities of unlimited studio time and the latest equipment, that transition culminated in the psychedelic masterpiece, Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. It set a new standard in writing, performing and complexity. Rock music had come of age and even the most avant garde bands were looking to the Beatles to set the standard.

Roy Harper: Every Album, Every Song (On Track) – A part of the Intro

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Introduction

Roy Harper is a unique individual and an innovative songwriter who took his first uncharacteristically tentative steps into the London folk scene during the mid-1960s. He was born on 12 June 1941 into the middle of World War II, his mother sadly dying a few days later from mastitis: a common breast infection, nowadays easily treatable. The loss of his mother, naturally, had a lifelong impact on Roy’s personality. His father married again, but his stepmother was a strict, religious woman, and Roy’s life of rebellion began.

   His first memory is of being held in someone’s arms, looking towards a red glow on the horizon, and being told, ‘Manchester’s really copping it tonight’. As a wayward child, his younger years were marked by constant trouble, both at home and school. On one occasion, he was found many miles from home, pedalling his trike towards Liverpool. His dislike of the religion his stepmother imposed, led to him performing pagan ceremonies and burying effigies in his back garden.

   As a child, Harper lived in the genteel town of Lytham St Annes: a place he once described as a cemetery with a bus stop. The tedium of life in the drowsy town portrayed a conservative ethos he fought against. Moving into his teenage years, minor incidents progressed into more serious crimes. He and a small group of friends alternated between running free in the countryside and conducting shoplifting and vandalism sprees. These activities ranged from stealing chocolates in Woolworths to breaking into Lytham’s cricket pavilion. They drank the booze they found inside, then burnt the building to the ground.

   On one occasion, Roy and a friend rampaged through the town, pulling up freshly planted roadside saplings, then hoisting a weighing machine through the public toilets’ window. Exhausted, they searched for somewhere to put their heads down and broke into a garage. Falling asleep in a car, they were discovered the following morning: by the owner, who, unfortunately, happened to be a policeman.

   Continued rebellion and a string of minor offences culminated in Roy’s arrest. He was found guilty of daubing swastikas and a hammer and sickle on the town hall – the act ostensibly a protest aimed at the councillors (who he considered to be a bunch of Nazis) and against the Russian invasion of Hungary. It was sufficient to produce a double-spread article with photos in the Daily Mirror.

   This was just the beginning.

   At fifteen – in order to escape from his stepmother and the mayhem he had created – Roy signed up to the Royal Air Force for five years, with dreams of becoming a pilot. But life in the RAF was not how he imagined. He tried boxing, which provided some respite, but the unremitting discipline and tedium of life as a serviceman became unbearable. After two years, he knew he had to get out. Without the cash to buy his discharge, Roy decided to feign madness – not too difficult a task in his case. He successfully convinced the military doctors, and the RAF discharged him, but only as far as RAF Princess Mary’s mental institution, where he was assessed and treated. There being sectioned, he was forcibly medicated with lithium and largactyl, and even subjected to electric shock therapy. Eventually transferred to Lancaster Moor Hospital, Roy decided that in order to keep his ‘insanity’, he had to escape. Being of slight build, he was able to squeeze through a fanlight window and flee. I have a mental image of him, wearing one of those gowns that tie at the back, racing across the grass and scaling the wall – although I’m sure it probably wasn’t quite like that.

   Now on the run, Roy headed for Blackpool, where he became immersed in the bohemian subculture. As a self-proclaimed hashish-smoking beatnik, he discovered the world of Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Burroughs and began to write poetry.

Neil Young 1963 to 1970: Every Album, Every Song (On Track…) Part of Intro

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Introduction

Neil Young is the vagabond chameleon, easily bored and always searching for something new. His wild, maverick spirit and surging creative energies have always been given free rein, his commitment always total. For Neil, ever since his childhood, when he found himself moving house so many times, change has been the norm. But whatever it is he’s doing, it’s always 100%.

   Neil is the rock ‘n’ roll gypsy, always on the move, never parking his caravan long in any one spot. As Neil said in his autobiography Waging Heavy Peace: ‘I have a thing for transportation, cars, boats, trains. Travelling. I like moving’.

   Fame and fortune were rarely his motivation, as he worshipped his art, the music always came first. There was never any compromise. Friendships, lovers and relationships were sacrificed on the altar of his obsessive music.

   Whereas most rock musicians went into music to pull the chicks (Jimmy McDonough quotes Graham Nash in his biography Shakey: ‘anyone who tells you that they didn’t get into rock ‘n’ roll to get laid is lying’), that was not the case with Neil, he was the exception – Neil went into it for the music. Indeed, in the early days, there was no time for girls. Jimmy quotes Neil’s mother Rassy: ‘Neil didn’t have any girlfriends. He was too busy playing music’.

   That love of the seminal excitement of rock music never diminished. In later years, following the advent of digital sounds and the MP3, he set off on a musical crusade to take digital music back to the quality of the analogue sounds that first gave him that transcendental spiritual experience he had felt as a youth. He wants future generations to experience the delight and rapture that so moved him when he was young. He thinks they are being short-changed.

   Like his lurching, rhythmic movements when straining notes out of his guitar during a performance (maybe a nod to that polio he suffered as a child?), his career has constantly lurched from one thing to another. He’s burnt his way through various styles and genres with wildly different moods, as his muse latched on to a variety of obsessive interests – never predictable or safe, never with a thought for commercial impact, always giving everything, striving to connect with the muse that had infected him as a boy. If something caught his attention, he went into it full pelt. Nothing held back.

   It was that constant striving that drove him to become one of the greatest songwriters and performers of the rock ‘n’ roll era, and certainly one of the most prolific.

   He’s rampaged through styles, bands and musicians like a raging comet, always looking for the next project, something he could lose himself in and become fixated on. It’s a thirst that has never ceased.

Bob Dylan 1962 to 1970 On Track – Part of the intro

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Introduction  

I was fortunate to be introduced to Bob Dylan’s music at the young age of thirteen, though I did not fully appreciate that at the time.

    A good friend of mine by the name of Charlie Mutton had purchased Bob’s debut album shortly after it was released and he was smitten. That was peculiar. Up to that time we had been listening to chart material and old rock ‘n’ roll.  Heaven knows where Mutt picked up on Dylan’s first album. I don’t remember it being either popular or available in my neck of the woods. We weren’t big on ‘folk’ music. However, my ears weren’t tuned in to the raw, nasally sound of Bob’s folk-blues and, although I listened all the way through and even appreciated a number of the tracks, I was not greatly impressed. Mutt was more clued up and assured me that Dylan was going to be huge and if he’d only release a single it would be a top ten hit. I remained quietly sceptical.

   Mutt was incredibly prophetic. Subsequent albums and the ‘Times They Are A Changin’’ single did just as he had predicted. Bob Dylan went on to become one of the most important figures in the history of rock music. Not only did he change the face of rock music but he also had a profound effect on the direction of youth culture. Once I’d ‘got it’, and my ears became more accustomed, I too was utterly smitten.

   As with Dylan I was caught up in the zeitgeist of the time. These were the days of great divisions in society, a rising rebellious youth, the threat of instant annihilation from nuclear war, great changes in attitudes. The traumas of the second world war were still fresh but the economy and world were opening up. Change was in the air. Our parents represented something we did not want to be. Bob was riding that wave of change.

Big Thank You for all the BRILLIANT new reviews on Amazon.

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I know it’s sad but I always start my day by checking my book sales and reading any new reviews. It always gives me a boost.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=opher+goodwin&crid=3FR0KEEWR3J1U&sprefix=opher+goodwin%2Caps%2C188&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Thank you all so much for leaving such great reviews. I’m so glad you are enjoying my work.

All the best. Keep ’em coming!!

Futile Gestures of Defiance – the introduction.

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Some words before the feast

I’m always one for gestures. Even if one has no real hope of promoting positive change one can still express one’s anguish. My heroes were the Native North Americans who rode bareback up to their lethally armed enemies with a short coup stick to tap them on the head. Of course, they were cynically massacred. Nobody understood.

The world is in a mess. I sometimes wonder if it has really become so much worse during the seventy-five years of my life-time.  In many ways I think it has. Though, perhaps, it is just that I now know a lot more about what is going on.

I guess some things have become better and some things worse.

Back at college in the sixties we studied the terrible impact of humans on our environment. I remember studying the dreadful toll of hunting on the populations of many species and the effect of expanding human populations on habitats. We studied the data and were appalled. At the time it was whales, gorillas, bonobos and chimps that were the real focus of my fury. Then there were the pesticides, deforestation and pollution to infuriate me. Since then things have gone from bad to disaster. Deforestation, global warming, species extinctions, population crashes and habitat destruction all loom large. We have one planet and a biosphere that has taken billions of years to evolve; we are dismantling it in mere decades.

Back in the sixties I had hopes that we could end war, racism, intolerance, poverty and throw off this strangle-hold of control by this greedy elite. We were building a new world with better values. Unfortunately the same old robber barons took over the revolution, bought off the movers and shakers or ousted them, and proceeded to monetarise revolution. They tighten their grip on the media and now run the propaganda machine. We are all brainwashed. The whole world runs on propaganda. The markets are controlled. Revolution for profit. Everything is fake news. Conspiracy is contrived. The cyber war has been lost. We are all helpless victims.

Everything is run on greed. We are all pawns.

The irony is that it is the greediest who have risen to the top on the promise of ridding us of greed. The likes of Trump, Modi, Johnson, Farage, Bolsonaro, Erdogan, Oban, Netanyahu, Wilders, Le Penne, Meloni and Orpo – a bunch of ultra-right populist opportunists – have beguiled populations with their lies, silly promises, religious extremism and xenophobic/racist solutions.

Politicians use race, immigration and religion as weapons.

‘Drain the swamp’ is the cry from the most corrupt. ‘Lock her up’ is the cry from the man who should be locked up. It’s sheer irony.

We live in the world of George Orwell’s double-think. War is now peace. Hate is mandatory. Division rules.

Instead of pulling together to find solutions to poverty, climate change, war and racism, we are split apart into factions, blaming immigrants, muslims and jews.

The world has gone nuts.

Meanwhile Xi, Putin and Jong Un, vi with the USA for control of the universe, threatening to plunge us into a nuclear holocaust.

The third world still languishes in poverty created by exploitation, greed and inequality. Huge swathes of land are becoming uninhabitable due to raging temperatures, drought and famine. We are beset with wars, terrorism and armed insurgency. Religion ferments hatred and division all the way from the US evangelical nutcases intent on world domination, through the muslim extremism of ISIS and the Taliban, the jewish/ muslim extremism of the orthodox jews, Netanyahu and the evil hatred of Hamas. Iran hovers fermenting trouble. Religious hatred and power –lust propels us to the edge.

The world burns. Resources are wasted. A tiny elite cream off all the wealth and misuse it. The world is run by the likes of Musk, Murdock, Zuckerberg, Bezos and Gates. People think it is OK to earn billions while two thirds of the world starves.

We have AI wars, cyber terrorism, security and control.

We have a society descending into the decadence of shallowness, uninvolvement, ignorance, alcohol, drugs, sex and a complete lack of understand. They don’t care. Hedonism is total. Awareness nil.

Education is a myth. The religious indoctrinate. The political control. The robber barons are firmly in control.

The world is run for the profit of the few.

So I piss into the wind and write my pathetic poetry for a non-existent audience.

This is it: just words. Hopeless, ineffective, pathetic and futile.

My poetry may be crap but it is my coup stick. It’s all I have.

These are my gestures.

Mind you – I do believe in zeitgeists!

Opher – 21.7.2024

Futile Gestures of Defiance – Now Available in hardback, paperback and e-book.

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My latest anthology of poems and diatribe is available in all three formats.

Thanks for looking. Thanks for likes. Thanks for ratings and reviews. Means a lot!!

Enjoy!!

Another slice of ‘537 Essential Rock Albums’ – my views on what are the best rock albums ever.

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I’m not too fussed about the order, that changes from day to day. In my opinion ehese are just albums that everybody should own and listen to constantly! My favourites!

537 Essential Rock Albums – Pt. 1 The first 270: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9781502787408: Books

93. Bruce Springsteen – Darkness at the edge of town

This album was made before Bruce had made that breakthrough into becoming a megastar. His song-writing was near its peak and he’d had a big lay-off due to legal battles with his management. The previous album ‘Born to Run’ had broken him into the mainstream and the two year gap enabled him to get his song-writing and recording together for the next one. It also fired him up with anger and frustration that spilled out onto the tracks. You can hear it on ‘Badlands’, ‘Adam made a Cain’, ‘Factory’, ‘Prove it all night’, and ‘Promised land’.

I love this album because you can feel the intensity of the emotion coming straight through. The production was crystal clear and Bruce’s guitar seared with fury. The lyrics were among his best. He had distilled this out of a huge number of songs that he’d spilled out during his enforced rest. Some of those had gone out to other people and loads stayed in the can for a long time. What finally came out made all the waiting worthwhile. This was a landmark album and took Bruce forward a big step. That sound was now crisp and the songs finely honed.

If only a number of other bands, like Cream, had had that same forced period of rest to recover their creative zest they probably would have gone on to make further masterpieces.


94. Roy Harper – Flat Baroque & Berserk

Roy’s expertise had finally come to the attention of the powers that be. EMI had woken up to the fact that there was a burgeoning Underground scene in England and wanted to get in on the act. They wanted to sign up the best psychedelic and progressive bands and Roy was among the first to benefit. They created this new label – ‘Harvest’ and began to harvest the talent.

For the first time Roy was able to record his material in a sympathetic manner, with a produced and engineers who appreciated his songs and a studio, in Abbey Road previously used by the Beatles, which allowed him to give the material the production it deserved. It was a marriage made in heaven.

I was fortunate enough to get invited to the party and watch it all take shape. The control room was often packed with the elite of Rock Music with Jimmy Page, Keith Moon, Dave Gilmour and John Bonham popping in to see how things were going and add their contributions. They were heady days.

Roy usually had at least one epic to add to the mix and there were a couple of weighty pieces on this effort. The major song was ‘I hate the Whiteman’ which was a vitriolic blast at European culture and the great edifice of a society that it had created. This was a song in the same vein as that other masterpiece ‘McGoohan’s Blues’ and Roy did not want to see it go the same way. He wanted to ensure it was properly recorded and he wanted it to be live so that all the passion would come across. He recorded it at Les Cousins as the centre-piece of the album.

This album was a real gem with a range of superb songs. The studio and production really did justice to them and superb compositions like ‘Another day’, ‘How does it feel’, ‘East of the Sun’, ‘Tom Tiddler’s Ground’ and ‘Davey’ all came to life.

Strangely, despite its excellence, it failed to become enormous. For all that it is a triumph.


95. Bob Dylan – Blonde on Blonde

This was the third of Bob’s brilliant string of mid-sixties electric albums. It was a bit different to the two previous in that the song-writing had changed again, the production was different, and Bob had hit upon this new sound that permeated the whole album. It was really created around Al Kooper’s organ and Robbie Robertson’s guitar. This was a double album of superb brilliance and there wasn’t a filler to be found anywhere. The scope was also enormous from the fun and exuberance of ‘Rainy day women #12 and 35’ (a term for a doobie) and the epic slow and melancholy ‘Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands’.

This was Dylan motoring at his very best with poetry leaping from his tongue in one long cavorting stream. Nearly all these songs have gone on to become classics and there were so many of them – ‘Stuck inside of mobile with the Memphis Blues again’, ‘Visions of Johanna’, ‘Pledging my time’, ‘One of us must know, (sooner or later)’, ‘Temporarily like Achilles’, ‘Most likely you go your way, I’ll go mine’, ‘Absolutely sweet Marie’, ‘4th time around’, ‘Obviously 5 believers’ and ‘Just like a woman’.

It had raised the bar again.

Sadly it was also the end of an era. Just as the whole sixties thing, that had been inspired by Bob, began to gain momentum and get underway its architect dropped out. It had all got too much and a motorbike accident allowed him the excuse to get out, clean himself up, get rid of his whole unwanted persona as ‘the spokesperson for a generation,’ dump all the expectations, get over his strung-out nerves, and put things in perspective. He decided he didn’t want the shit.

What came after had some great moments but never reached the heights of his two purple patches in the sixties.


96. Beatles – Let it be

The Beatles were also suffering from careeritis. They had got sick of being with each other. There were personality clashes, jealousies over the inclusion of songs, managerial problems and financial concerns. It was all going pear-shaped. They were baling out and putting their solo careers into gear.

There was some dispute over whether this or Abbey Road was the last album by the fab four. It was all to do with recording dates and the shelving of the album ‘Get Back’. It matters little.

The album was brilliant despite the problems between the various members and their spouses. If this is what discord produces then there should be a lot more of it. The album was certainly a great way to go out. The shame of it is that they never got back together again. They were so much better together as we could see from the various solo careers. Both George and John started brilliantly and faded badly and Paul was all middle of the road. It was tragic that by the time they began to put their personal issues behind them we were robbed of any further reunion by a deranged madman who murdered John.

The highlight of the album for me was John’s ‘Across the universe’ which is my favourite Beatle track. But it was packed with other delights such as ‘Get back’, ‘I Me Mine’, ‘One after 909’, ‘Dig it’, ‘Let it be’, ‘Dig a pony’ and ‘The two of us’.

It was immaculate. Thanks guys.


97. Captain Beefheart – Spotlight Kid

The Spotlight Kid is another tour de force of Beefheart and one of my firm favourites. Don went on and on producing the greatest and most innovative Rock sound ever and using a number of different musicians in the process.

This album was a lot more blues based with slightly less discordant structures to the songs that a lot of people find more accessible. It still had all the Beefheart hallmarks though. His voice, lyrics and the sound of the band were all top-notch.

From the opening guitar riffs of ‘I’m going to booglarize you baby’ you get the feeling that this is something special. The second guitar comes in and then the bass. Beefheart growls into he mic and sends a shudder through you. First hearing and I was fully booglarized. ‘White Jam’ started very differently with its absence of guitar and keyboard emphasis but the lyrics were still as good. We won’t go into what this white jam might be. We’re back to guitars on ‘Blabber ‘n’ Smoke’. We’ve all been there. ‘When it blows its stacks’ is back to that ominous riff and growling. I know I wouldn’t want to be around when that blows!

The album goes on and on in the same vein with track after track of outstanding sound. By the time I’d been down the line with ‘Click Clack’ and got myself ready for a sub-aqua existence with ‘Grow fins’, my friend Paul’s favourite, I was certainly ready to believe that there was certainly ‘No Santa Claus on the Midnight train’. We were on our own!

I soared off into the sky in my slightly dirge-like glider.

What a superb album and it wasn’t even one of his best!


98. Family – Family Entertainment

Family were one of those highly talented Progressive Rock groups who emerged on the British Undergound scene in the sixties. They were one of those bands who were better live than on record. Their live performances were scintillating.

Roger Chapman’s voice was extremely distinctive with its great warbling quality. The band were very Tight. Charlie Whitney played most instruments and Rick Grech’s bass was excellent. He was later snaffled by Blind Faith and drunk himself to death in his forties.

This is my favourite album of theirs because it has the epic ‘Weaver of life’, classic ‘Observations from a hill’ and great ‘Hung up down’.

They should have gone on to greater things.


99. Beatles – Please Please Me

If you are looking for the album that made the biggest impact then this is it. You probably have to go back to Elvis Presley and his ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll’ album in 1957 to get close.

The Beatles exploded upon the scene and sent napalm cascading over the planet. It was the rebirth of Rock Music. Just when the American Establishment began to relax thinking they’d removed the scourge of Rock ‘n’ Roll the Beatles came and kicked everything into space. They released a swell like a burst damn. There was no way it was going to be put back in that bottle.

This album changed the world and paved the way for everything that came after. What poured through the hole they’d blasted transformed society, sparked off the sixties era of social reform and ushered in a whole new wave of liberalisation. All that from a set of songs on a chunk of waste material made from oil.

My friend Tony played me ‘I saw her standing there’ and I was completely blown away. As soon as you heard it you recognised the significance. This was new, different and modern. Not only that but it was also British!

They blew the past away. None of the Underground, psychedelia or Rock Music would have happened without them. This album was transformative. We’d all be wearing short back and sides without it.

Apart from the sound, and the appearance of the performers, the other incredible thing about this debut album was that seven of the fourteen tracks were written by the Beatles. That was unheard of. In general singers sung other people’s songs. Elvis did write songs. Of course there were exceptions such as Buddy Holly but in general the song-writers of the Brill Building in Tin Pan Alley provided the material or it was stolen from black R&B. This was a departure that gave the Beatles a big boost and enhanced their chances of longevity. Not only that but it was instantly obvious that the quality of even their early material – ‘I saw her standing there’, ‘Please please me’ and ‘PS I love you,’ – were every bit as good as the R&B classics that made up the rest of the album. Even their choice of the R&B material was unusual. It was not the usual songs that other Liverpool bands were covering. The Beatles had selected things like ‘Chains’, ‘Anna (go with him)’, ‘Boys’, ‘A taste of honey’ and ‘Twist and Shout’.

It blew the cobwebs out of the social machine!


100. Jimi Hendrix – Are you Experienced?

Talking of brilliant earth-shattering debut albums then this was another. I can still remember hearing ‘Hey Joe’ for the first time on an old portable tinny, plastic radio and sitting bolt upright to concentrate. My ears had never heard a sound like it. Jimmy exploded on us ready-formed.

That first album blew my young innocent mind. In early 1967 I was seventeen and clearly not at all experienced. When ‘Hey Joe’ came out in 1966 my American pen-friend (we are talking archaic social media here) wrote to me telling me that she and her friends liked getting high on grass and listening to Jimi. I imagined them out in a meadow on top of a hill with a portable radio. It did not take too long for me to catch up though.

Everything Jimi produced was mind-blowing. He shifted the whole music scene into another gear and propelled us into Progressive, Heavy and Psychedelic all at the same time.

The first album may have been all short tracks overseen by Chas Chandler but they spoke in Martian. That was lucky because we were all yearning to speak Martian and lapped it up. From ‘Foxy Lady’ to ‘Are you experienced?’ it was non-stop aural explosive delight. Jimi wrenched new sounds out of the guitar, new chords, new feedback and weaved it round his songs to create something from outer space. We loved it.

There are no stand-out tracks because they were all stand-out – ‘Fire’, ‘Love or Confusion?’ ‘Can you see me?’ ‘Manic depression’ ‘Third stone from the sun’ – it went on and on with one crazy new thing after another. The sound was so new, dynamic and loud. This debut was the start of something outrageously special. There’ll never be another Jimi.

101. Screaming Jay Hawkins – Cow fingers & mosquito pie

There’ll never be another Screaming Jay either! This is the man who back in the early 1950s started Shock-Rock. He developed an act that was so shocking that it must have scared the life out of that staid old world of ice-cream and apple-pie. He started off on stage springing out of a coffin complete with long cape, voodoo amulets, shrunken skulls, snakes, wide eyes and grimaces. Alan Freed put him on his Rock ‘n’ Roll shows as ‘the Wildman of Rock’ and I can’t imagine what effect having a huge Blackman leaping out of a coffin and gurning at the audience had on all those young teenage white girls.

The songs were in the same vein and his classic ‘I put a spell on you’ which came out in the mid fifties was considered so primitive with its grunting and groaning that it was banned from radio play. That song was covered by everyone on the Beat scene back in the sixties. He put his operatic voice to good use creating some outrageous songs and strange parodies of classics like ‘I love Paris’ which were so weird they were wonderful.

This album collects together most of those classic tracks with ‘I put a spell on you’, ‘Alligator wine’, ‘Frenzy’, ‘There’s something wrong with you’ and ‘Orange coloured sky’ though it does miss off the wonderful ‘Constipation Blues’ (for that you have to go to ‘Feast of the Mau-Mau’) and his much later cover of Tom Wait’s ‘Heart attack and Vine’ that was used in a commercial on TV.

His act has been copied and built on by lots of others including Screaming Lord Sutch and Alice Cooper.


102. Tommy Tucker – Hi Heeled Sneakers

Tommy produced two absolutely classic singles that were done in that Jimmy Reed/Slim Harpo style with the infectious beat – ‘Long tall Shorty’ and ‘Hi-heeled sneakers’. Those songs have been done to death by Beat groups and I can see why. They have that easy-going, laid-back jauntiness with a hypnotic bass-line.

Tommy unfortunately died early and never built on the success of his two brilliant singles. The manner of his death was really bizarre. He was touring England in the sixties and died of food poisoning from a hamburger. Surprisingly McDonalds did not feature him or his songs in any advertising (It wasn’t a McDonalds – we didn’t have them here back then!)

This album contains all his early stuff.


103. Bo Carter – Banana in your fruit basket

A lot of the Blues we have recorded was sanitised for general output. The Blues came from rural areas in Mississippi and Louisiana and was the music of the hard-working sharecropping families who worked there. It served many functions – as work-songs – to speed up the repetitive labour in the fields – as dance songs at the country barbeques – as busking songs in the streets – as songs for entertainment in the bars and brothels – and as protest and cathartic anger. I think a lot of these never saw the light of day. They were considered too dangerous to risk putting on vinyl. Life was

Bo Carter was performing back in the early 1930s and specialised in risqué acoustic Blues songs with double entendres. His guitar playing is very highly developed rag-time style. This album, as the name suggests, is full of these type of songs. Some of them are very amusing and some highly inventive. It includes such gems as ‘My pencil won’t write no more’, ‘Pussy cat blues’, ‘Don’t mash my digger so deep’, ‘Pin in your cushion’ and ‘What kind of scent is this?’