Entertainment For Lively Minds
Blow their trumpets
I have made it my mission for the past twenty five years to know music.
Then last month a guy called Jackie Leven died and I was surprised that I had never heard of him. Not once in any of the music weeklies or monthlies or daily broadsheets or on BBC4 or been sent a clip on YouTube.
It begs the question, who else is there to discover before they leave this planet in body but not in spirit?
I am not just after singers or musicians but songwriters who barely get a mention, session persons who have played on countless hits maybe, producers whose body of work is fantastic but always seems to slip under the radar. It could even be a local musician that never managed to find the fame highway.
Or what about those that have worked in the background for their working lives as managers or promoters or whatever?
Of course, it could be a Jackie Leven, someone that has slipped so far off the radar that they are already a footnote in life.
Let's big them up before a Wikipedia sourced obituary closes their final chapter.
I would like to bring your attention to the British funk group Cymande that produced a string of fine albums in the seventies and have reformed at least once in the past decade. It would be great to see them strutting their stuff regularly again.
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Michael Weston King
- first time I saw him play was with Jackie Leven when they shared a stage with Robert Fisher of Willard Grant Conspiracy - taking it in turn to sing a song and sometimes join in on each others songs. Michael is one of the old school craftsmen of song - might not be gut wrenching rock and roll but the deft use of a well turned lyric to tell a story. Last album was anti war songs "I Didn't Raise My Son To Be A Soldier" whilst the latest that he's touring is My Darling Clementine which is his take on the old male/female duet songs of Country Music.
I saw Cymande last year...
They were playing the Electric Picnic 2010 here in Ireland. I like my funk but found them a bit of a let down. Probably too latin for my tastes. For what it's worth I think the bass-line to their most famous track BRA bears an uncanny resemblance to the bass-line from Fools Gold by the Stone Roses.
I LOVE Cymande...
... Seriously under rated bunch.
This tune's a cracker...
Wizz Jones...
...the perpetual underdog. A Brit-folk/blues trailblazer in the 1950s and still performing (brilliantly). Wizz is like a fine wine from a rare vintage - not many people seem to know about it but the quality is fabulous and the cognoscenti delighted to have a bottle in their cellar!
Wizz isn't a prolific songwriter (quality not quantity) but is a fabulous interpreter of others' song - particularly Alan Tunbridge, who's been more or less his house writer for 40+ years - and has a wholly unique, swinging guitar style.
Here he is... catch him around the country if you can:
There is a website for this sort of thing..
http://www.rnrjoe.com/
Bad News
I headed straight over there to fill my boots with music by people I'd never heard of only to be met, on the home page by the sad news that Joe Gracey has died. I only knew of him as "Mr Kimmie Rhodes" but he enhanced many a gig with his playing and sense of humour.
I'm sure
that there are websites that deal with most of the discussions on this and other blogs on the Internet. All I'm trying to do is create a discussion rather than become a conduit for an all encompassing website
Obviously this didn't catch on, let's argue about football and talk about the racist shit our grans used to spout.
*bye bye*
Neal Casal
This guy deserves more recognition. He's been part of Ryan Adams' Cardinals but I think he's way better than RA. Great songs, a lovely voice, what's not to like?