An occasional music spot - remembering places around the World

The place in this instance would be my living room in front of the TV on a Friday evening in the 1960s. As the ‘5-4-3-2-1’ countdown announced ‘the weekend starts here’ with ATV’s ‘Ready Steady Go’ ! 

On Friday July 31st 1964 The Kinks played a particular song and life (well my life) would not be the same again - I found I was addicted to Power Chords and I still am … ! 

The group performed two songs: 'I Got Love If You Want It' and of course this ‘You Really Got Me’ > 

Watch out for the strange dancing chef in this 'Beat Room Show' video.

   

From one Tangerine Dream to another... 

After last week, this time it's not the band but an album named 'Tangerine Dream'. 

So let's drift back to 1967....

Amid the lyrics of 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' there are clues to the name. Even while that song was being written an English psychedelic rock band from London called Kaleidoscope had begun recording their debut album 'Tangerine Dream' in January 1967, using songs they had written in late 1966. The recordings were completed in May. The album`s June release was then rescheduled to November to allow their debut single 'Flight from Ashiya' to introduce them to the record-buying public [a song that sounds very 'See Emily Play' like - see them live here].  

The LP finally appear late November 1967 and despite the group’s following, good reviews and radio play it failed to reach the charts. It is now considered a classic psychedelic album.

Kaleidoscope were composers Peter Daltrey on vocals, keyboards and lyrics with Eddy Pumer: guitar, keyboards and music, along with Steve Clark: bass, flute & Dan Bridgman on drums & percussion.  

A place to start is the track that ends the album, a psychedelic fairy tale: 'The Sky Children' >

I can recommend tracks '(Further Reflections) In The Room Of Percussion' [with weird stereo effects] click here. And 'Dear Nellie Goodrich' among others on this album. 

NB: Confusingly there's an American band from the same era called Kaleidoscope. A psychedelic folk group who recorded four albums and several singles for Epic Records between 1966 and 1970. The band's membership included multi instrumentalist David Lindley.

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The news of the death of the 'godfather of the British Blues' was a sad start to today. He featured as a Friday Star Track back in 2020 on 1st May. 

'So Many Roads' would be a fitting tribute - relive this from 2008, with another greatly missed artist Gary Moore. 

  

Today is the birthday of Queen's Brian May. Not that I needed an excuse to play this, but I found one.

A Tangerine Dream concert at the Starmus Festival 2011 on Spain's Tenerife Island with a guest appearance by Brian May. The festival was held in honour of the 50th Anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's first space flight.

The video takes awhile to get going as the artists walk on stage to perform a beautiful song called 'Sally's Garden'. Founding Tangs member Edgar Froese is there on keyboards as Brian channels his inner Mark Knopfler and Linda Spa plays the saxophone.  

Tangerine Dream & Brian May > 'Sally's Garden'  

Amazingly this has only been viewed 38 times on YouTube - can't believe that ? !! 

   

From last week's devil's crossroads to 'Dead Man's Road' would seem a short distance, certainly musically at any rate. Lyrically the warnings of the dangers of addiction and to the path to redemption are told in this honest tale written by Bruce Brookshire lead singer with the Doc Holliday Southern rock band, named after the American frontier gambler, gunfighter and dentist !

From the group's 2001 album 'A Better Road' this falls into my contemporary road songs category and has some great guitar work from John Turner Samuelson. It's very Lynyrd Skynyrd, which is probably why I like it so much. 

Guitar playing folk legend from Devon, who performed at the Hayloft Club in 1974 and 1975. Listen to Paul below playing a selection of songs (which are helpfully captioned) recorded in Brighton in 2009. 

View The COVE pub in Fairlight for additional information: thecovefairlight.co.uk/events/ 

An English folk singer, born in Sussex, worked in Australia before returning to England in 1967. Appeared at the Hayloft Club in 1974 and 1984. Listen to Martyn here singing ‘Come Walk with Me’, followed by a video from 2011, a 'live' show in Sydney and a song called 'Billy of Tea'. With an intro poem and a performance with Iris Bishop on concertina, who will be accompanying him for this special show in September. 

View The COVE pub in Fairlight for additional information: thecovefairlight.co.uk/events/ 

 

  

'Big American Car Music' - that's what Dylan Jones called it in his book 'iPod, Therefore I Am' that I mentioned back in March saying 'no doubt this will come up again'. And so this week we are out there 'On the Road' again. 

Dylan Jones' is obsessed with lists (certainly more so than me) and he did provided some new songs for me. Which led me to compile a list of 'classic' road songs, you know and love, and then more recent 'contemporary' tracks. I won't list them here, you know the classics I'm sure (listening to Steppenwolf and Springsteen or perhaps just the one cassette tape full of Creedence Clearwater Revival), that would have accompanied those road trips across America. Tomorrow actually marks the anniversary of an epic 'Coast to Coast' drive in 1978 (again mentioned in these blogs previously). 

My list was of mostly American bands, though not exclusively (Free, Bad Company and Eric Clapton aside) and the book speaks of “Then I went to America and it all made perfect sense", the music filled the car as the freeways rushed under the wheels. 

The book has various suggestions for the perfect car tape by listing different States and places with appropriate music for them. Adding at the end of the book a full 50 more you'll need: "Appendix 14: Drive Time" !

This was how I heard about 'Hoover Dam' by Sugar, an American alternative rock band formed in 1992, they were led by the singer and guitarist Bob Mould. Power guitar, big choruses, great words, on 'Copper Blue' - 1992 NME album of the year ! So how did I miss this ? Well I do have a distinct feeling I've heard it before... 

Geographical references are a must for any road music and this underrated album is loaded with great tracks. With 'Hoover Dam' managing to ask about the deal at the most famous ‘crossroads’ in music (Clarksdale, Mississippi: highways 49 & 61).

At times this track's vocals remind me of Marillion - hope you like Sugar 

 

   

For the fair ladies of Fairlight, in particular the 'Rise and Shine' class, who in a massed dancercise display at 'Fairfest' last weekend threw some shapes to various well chosen pieces of music. Videos available on a Facebook page near you !

I referenced this track last September when Northern Soul celebrated 50 years - at the end under 'More dancing...?' Revisit blog here. But I didn't provide a link then, so Frank Wilson is this week's Star Track artist with the anthem 'Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)'. *Originally a 45 record in 1965, but forever associated with Northern Soul in 70s Britain. And now Fairlight's 'Fairfest 2024' > 

Video shows the Northern Soul dance moves, so you can do your thing... 

*'Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)’ by Frank Wilson: 

As a producer for Tamla Motown he tried his luck as a recording artist in 1965, recording this single for release on the Tamla Motown / Soul label. 250 demo 45s were pressed and scheduled for release. Frank Wilson then decided to focus on producing and he had the demos trashed. Somehow some survived to become popular in the Northern Soul movement and the single became a rare collectable, ultimately being officially released on the Tamla Motown label in 1979. 

  

In this month's Mojo magazine their obituary column 'Real Gone' informed me that The Allman Brothers Band's guitar great Dickey Betts left us on April 18th. 

It goes on to say that "in Britain even car enthusiasts with little affinity with down-home 70s rusticity would recognise 'Jessica', the Betts penned composition BBC tv show 'Top Gear' adopted as its long standing theme-tune".

The buoyant instrumental named after his then infant daughter would in 2006 be called 'a true national heirloom' by The Wall Street Journal. 

The tune maybe familiar to 'Top Gear' fans but barely 30 seconds gets played at the beginning and end of shows. I recently reminded myself of the full track in particular the Chuck Leavell piano section two and a half minutes in and then just over a minute later the soaring guitar solo from Dickey Betts that follows. I'm posting here the original 7:30 album track for purists (like me). I do have a 'live' video but it's shorter and the piano not as good.  

The Mojo article ends by saying a statement posted on the The Allman Brothers Band official website after Betts died imagined him touring "in that old Winnebago in the sky". "Play on Brother Dickey" - 

FYI Ladies & Gentlemen 'Take it away': Live in 1982 'Jessica'  - right here