Blowing My Cover!

Thirty years or so ago...when I first 'properly discovered' The Beatles I recall being rather amazed to hear (or read, I forget which) that 'Yesterday' was the most covered song in history with, at that time, over 1,500 versions recorded.

With an exponential increase in the number of recordings the last three decades have spawned I'd probably be correct in guessing that number would now be well into the tens of thousands...maybe that figure could be accounted for just in the sleazy...yes...yucky...world of muzak - 'Music For Relaxation', 'Panpipe Moods', 'Theo Papadopoulos's Zither Zeniths'...you get the idea, I'm sure (actually, I own the accursed 'Panpipe Moods'...have done for 15 years...still in shrink wrap - and 'NO' I didn't pay for it!)

The age of CD and mp3 downloads has heralded this sharp increase in available 'music'...and, for me, nothing sums up the disposabilty of the majority of new pop music than the necessity of more and more cover versions released week after week!

To be fair, it's not just the music world that reaches back to halcyon days of yore...have you noticed the number of remade movies in the last few years? Why did they need to remake 'Alfie' or 'The Italian Job', for instance? It's not as if Michael Caine has even gone out of fashion, is it? Staggeringly, they even remade 'The Taking of Pelham 123' this year! Why? I've seen both and there's only one of them I'd want to watch again! Disney are even going to remake 'Yellow Submarine', I see...which brings me back, yet again, to the Fabs!

The very first LP of Beatles cover versions I bought I probably owned before I had even completed my collection of originals: the album 'Northern Songs' by Revolver was a collection of songs the Beatles 'gave away', performed (roughly) in the style the group may have used themselves had they recorded them. Filled with titles like 'Bad To Me', 'One and One is Two, 'Hello Little Girl' and 'From a Window' I remember listening over and over...imagining that there might, somewhere, be 'real' versions yet to be discovered...without ever seriously believing there were! I was wrong, of course - and from the mid-1990s, as I began to explore this new wonder called the Internet, I even found a few very lo-fi real audio files of a few of these tracks. 15 years later we OWN legitimate copies of most of them thanks to the Anthology series! A few remain elusive and will probably remain so (most notably Paul's demo of 'World Without Love') but every so often I still get a little surprise...good things come to those who wait...and surf!

A friend recently sent me a CD containing two BBC Radio specials, the latest incarnation of 'Beatles at the Beeb', this time introduced by Bill Kenwright and the second, a programme about Beatles cover versions hosted by former Cavern Club cloakroom attendant Cilla Black.

The former was another good trawl through the archives - not as exciting these days as when the original (Andy Peebles?) show was transmitted, opening our ears to recordings us mere fans never knew existed! We now have the 2-CD BBC set in our collections...have had for several years now...but I still cherish those Chrome Dioxide C-120s that repeated playing of once confirmed to me that The Beatles really did play songs like 'Oh Carol', 'Johnny Be Goode' and 'Cryin', Waitin', Hopin''

Yet the latter show has given me quite a bit more 'happy car moments' over the last few weeks - Sandie Shaw, Ella Fitzgerald, Dollar...my fellow Beatlemaniac 2nd son, Lewis, commented (very astutely, I thought) that there probably was no other group whose catalogue could be played in so many different styles and sound as if they were written for that genre...and I have to agree!

So...which Beatles covers stand out in my mind? Like most people I would have to include both the best and the worst in order to answer that one! Anyone remember the 'Sergeant Pepper' movie starring 'The Bee Gees'? It's VERY hard to find these days and it sums up all camps...the good, the not so good and the downright awful! The version of 'Got To Get You Into My Life' by 'Earth, Wind & Fire' (with the Phoenix Horns very much to the fore) is a much underplayed masterpiece...one of VERY few covers I might even prefer to the original! The same might not be said for Frankie Howerd's take on 'Mean Mr Mustard'!

I was very impressed, generally, by the musical versions found in the movie 'Across The Universe'. 'I Want You (She's So Heavy)', Bono's 'I Am Tne Walrus' and the title track are particularly effective, I think. The same cannot be said for George Martin's retirement offering, 'In My Life', made up of various celebrities 'doing' Beatles songs, which I find ponderous and somewhat pretentious. Most people love Joe Cocker's classic version of 'With a Little Help From My Friends' and it certainly lifts what could have been a throwaway 'Ringo' number were it not on 'Pepper' - did you know the original first lines were 'What would you do if I sang out of tune? Would you throw tomatoes at me?' Apparently Ringo refused to record that as he was unsure the days of concerts were over!

Beatles covers have been recorded successfully all around the world - and in most languages. The group themselves recorded 'Sie Liebt Dich' and 'Komm Gib Mir Deine Hand' for their own German fans - Del Shannon had a US hit with 'From Me To You' 6 months BEFORE the band themselves had a US hit! It seems that, whatever the group, if they've done any covers, they've probably done Beatles ones - even prog giants like 'Yes' featured 'Every Little Thing' on their first album, Deep Purple did 'Help' on theirs...Rick Wakeman did a whole tribute album...as have many others.

I hated the 'Dollar' hit version of 'She Loves You' when it came out and remember decrying it as some sort of sacrilege...I was pleasantly surprised that when I heard it on the Cilla show that not only did I quite enjoy it...I was actually somewhat impressed by the effective contrast that was Thereza's middle 8! Time can be forgiving, obviously!

Jazz has been good to Beatles music - I mentioned Ella earlier but many other singers, big bands and even modern jazz ensembles have taken Lennon/McCartney into new realms...I might not like all I've heard but that is not necessarily an indication of value, of course. Sinatra, of course, was another who covered several Beatles songs, once proudly announcing in concert that 'Something' was his "favourite Lennon-McCartney number"...OOPS!! (I hardly need to explain to educated folks like yourselves that George wrote that one!)

One of the strangest CDs of Beatles music I own is 'The Beatles Collection' by British vocal group 'The King's Singers'. I love this group anyway (they have recently released two sublime CDs of Salvation Army classics which are amongst the most played of all my vast collection).
'The King's Singers' are many groups in one: they can be hilariously funny - some wonderful, inventive arrangements of Noel Coward songs, a capella mediaeval madrigals, modern, self-commissioned classical and experimental works and many easy-listening (but far from muzak) pop covers (their singing of Neil Sedaka's 'God Bless Joanna' is one of the loveliest things I've ever heard) make up just part of their oeuvre... 'The Beatles Collection' visits many of these styles (all a capella) and includes some excellent versions of songs including 'Michelle', 'Eleanor Rigby' and 'And I Love Her'.

Another album I picked up on LP back in 1987 was 'Sergeant Pepper Knew My Father' - a collection of Beatles covers by bands of...1987 and released as part of the 'It was twenty years ago today' celebrations. When I pulled it out for this article I was pleased to see that the songs have outlasted all the featured artists! While I recall most of the NAMES of the artists featured the only ones I really KNOW are 'Wet, Wet, Wet' (who, of course, had the big hit with 'With a Little Help') and Frank Sidebottom, a cartoon-esque comic character with a spherical, fibreglass head! Let no-one claim that The Beatles are the sole property of the highbrow!

And, while talking of anniversaries, Google will no doubt have already brought to your attention the 40th birthday of the redoubtable 'Sesame Street' - a show which, as its viewers will know, features its own 'Sesame Beatles', well known for wonderful pastiches like 'Letter B' (Let It Be) and 'Hey Food'...they deserve a mention here!

It's OK...I know what you've been waiting for...and your 'proff' won't let you down! I can't complete this blog entry without going 'trekkie', can I? Love them or loathe them, the Beatles covers of Captain Kirk and Mr Spock simply cannot go unmentioned! William Shatner's dramatic, spoken interpretation of 'Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds' was voted the 'Worst Beatles Cover Version Ever' in a 2203 poll - beating Pinky & Perky's 'All My Loving' and Damon Hill's 'Drive My Car'...Yet Shatner's rendition has a cult appreciation too...it is SO bad it's actually quite good...if you get what I mean - either way it has to be heard to be believed (check it out on YouTube!). Leonard Nimoy's covers are barely better, sad to say!

And the number of Beatles covers will continue to grow, of that I am certain, for many years to come. The best music never dies (even when someone tries to kill it!) - the songs have survived the best efforts of Candy Flip, Will Young and Mrs Miller - just as Mozart's Piano Sonatas survived my clumsy efforts!

Let it be!

Blowing my own trumpet...well...euphonium!

I am blessed!

No...seriously, I am...and what's more...I know it and appreciate it!

It's been a while since the last blog...I've been a bit 'down' with the depression, busy at times but not at others and, this week I've spent 'home alone' with 2 sons at their mum's for a few days and the other on a church youth holiday in Belgium.

Last week was dominated by the recording of another CD...and I'm amazed how 'blasé' that must come across; so I've taken stock of such physical achievements - and hence the profession of my 'blessedness' apparent above! This blog piece is NOT intended as a piece of shameless self-promotion or big-headedness - merely a reflection of how blessed I really consider myself to have been in this life!

I'm no household name...but I've had opportunities I know a lot of other people would love to have had! I have been playing concerts as a euphonium soloist since I was 12...back in 1974 (which, honestly, doesn't feel as long ago as it clearly is!). If I had a pound for every time I've played 'Song of the Brother', 'Ransomed', 'La Belle Americaine', 'Euphony' and 'The Better World' I guess I'd have a healthy savings account balance today! I gave up counting at 125 towns and cities in England, Scotland and Wales...and can add more in France, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Holland, Norway and at least 5 cities in California to the list!

I held the record high mark for the Associated Board Grade 8 examination when I passed it, aged 15, back in 1978...I was told at music college that had I been as proficient on a more 'fashionable' instrument I could have made a career of it: suffice to say that 3 decades later I have never made one penny from blowing my euphonium!!! I have had compliments a-plenty, featured solos on two CDs and a review of my playing in a very highly-regarded online publication which resulted from a guest performance I made with a band a few years ago.

( http://www.4barsrest.com/reviews/concerts/con202.asp?l=uk )

Last week's CD was the latest (and I reckon it will be best so far) by Portsmouth Citadel Band. Recorded in four sessions over three days in Warsash Church it will be titled 'Deep Harmony' and features music by composers as varied as Ravel (Bolero), Gullidge (The Fount) and Peter Graham (The Last Amen). It will also mark a considerable step-up in quality by the band in terms of playing, reflecting their recent improvements under the baton and leadership of my good friend John Hanchett.

It should have been enough if I'd only played the euphonium...

...But I have also been able to perform in many other ways: I have sung for as long as I can remember - I made my stage debut in the musical 'Take Over Bid' when aged just 5 and a couple of years later remember being made aware that, in singing the hymn 'Now I Belong to Jesus' in a church service, I had raised a few smiles in the congregation by innocently claiming to have once been 'lost in sin's degradation'. (I was not such an evil child, I promise!)

After college I travelled Britain and Europe with the rock band 'Blood & Fire'. I was NOT as proficient on the electric guitar but I think I did an adequate job there, also featuring as a singer, trombonist and part-time additional keyboardist on their first two albums (then only released on cassette but now on CD!) Since then my 'rock' career went through 'Cross Purposes' and prog-rock band 'The Big Picture'...the latter band has still not officially split but it is 5 years since our last gig...it is a problem when the guitarist lives in Leeds, the drummer in Norfolk, our bassist is in the RAF - even if Alvin and I are only 25 miles or so apart in Haslemere and Portsmouth!

Yet I've done plenty of singing on my own, written 286 songs (to date) and have had my own solo CD of Christmas songs on sale for the last 7 or 8 years. In fact, I've been singing ever since childhood and featured as a vocal soloist on three more CDs that I know are listened to all around the world - those made by Portsmouth Citadel's Songsters. Although I have not sung on the last few PCS CDs I have been the main pianist/accompanist on two of the last three (including 'Take My Life' released earlier this year: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Take-My-Life-Let-Be/dp/B001WO9QOO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1256831625&sr=1-1 )

So...I AM BLESSED! Not just in terms of the talents God gave me but to have been able to offer those gifts back to Him in so many varied ways! It's been a heck of a life to experience ( I managed to fit in over 20 years music teaching in secondary schools) and I've loved every minute of the performing opportunities God has given me...and I hope it continues for many years to come!


I hope it doesn't go too far on my part to add a little even to the thespian theme I hinted at above too. That I've been able to sing and appear in 2 movies (one in the lead role!) and on stage, TV and radio has been a great added bonus! I've played on Ruth Rendell's 'Inspector Wexford', TV Drama 'The Blind Date' (starring Zara Turner) and, of course sung outside the Queen Vic in 'Eastenders'! On stage I've played Herr Schultz in 'Cabaret', Frank Strang in 'Equus', Mr Bumble in 'Oliver!', Henry VIII in 'Kings & Queens', Peter in 'The Witness', Father Christmas in 'Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' (for which I also wrote the incidental music) and several more...I even have my own page and video clip on IMDb ( http://uk.imdb.com/name/nm2218461/ )

Enough,then, for now...that's all about me, your 'proffsky' (show-offsky!)...and, as you will have seen - I am blessed!

The Screechy Music!!!!!

One of my lovely readers recently commented on her Facebook status that she wished her college teacher had not played "the screechy music" on the day she had a headache! I couldn't help but smile and ask the source of the accused quasi-musical screams! I suspected the most screechy* of all screechy pieces I have ever encountered - in fact I could hear it in my head as soon as I recalled it.

I speak of Penderecki's extra-ordinary 'Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima' no less! I first heard this in a composition workshop session at Music College back in 1981 and found it disturbing, challenging, riveting, thrilling and horrendous...all at the same time! The piece (written for 52 string instruments) requires its performers to interpret symbols, play on the 'wrong' side of the bridge, deliberately use 'quarter tones', slap the instruments and create textures and tone clusters.

(I had already encountered tone clusters by that time through my brass band experiences. Composer Paul Patterson made quite a 'splash' in 1974 with the highly controversial 'Chromascope'. When he wrote this work for 'Besses o'the Barn' band it was certainly unlike anything ever heard before in the brass band world! Even more reactionary was 'Cataclysm' a year or so later. I had played 'Cataclysm' myself and was intrigued by instructions on my euphonium part to 'play as high/low a note as possible' - and to improvise a 'triple forte' ending! No two performances could ever be the same (shades of the Indian music I wrote about a few weeks ago). I was even 'inspired' to compose my own piece in a similar vein - a massive work for large brass band with 8 timpani, tuned a semitone apart, and a synthesizer! Called 'Creation and Destruction', I wrote it for a college composition competition - only to be disctinctly embarrassed when Patterson himself was invited to 'judge' the contest!!!!)


I'd guess that fewer than one in a thousand music afficionados have heard even a portion of 'Threnody' but an attempt should, perhaps, be made to experience it at least once...even if 'just to see'! I don't think its the type of piece you would ever sit down to enjoy, it would not aid relaxation...and certainly is not the choice to accompany a romantic dinner!**

I was wrong in my guesswork anyway! The (as yet unidentified) piece in question was composed by the great 20th Century French composer Olivier Messiaen (1908-92). I have studied and enjoyed several of Messiaen's works (though I would still consider myself some way below an 'expert'!)

The two things I mostly associate with Messiaen are birdsong and colour:

Birdsong in music is another of those recurring themes. As long ago as Haydn and Mozart, then later Beethoven (in the Pastoral Symphony) composers had written music intended to represent birdsong - followed by Mahler (most notably in Symphony 7) and many other composers - but Messiaen took its use to new levels. An extremely keen ornithologist himself, he encouraged his students to listen intently to the songs of the birds. His 1952 audition piece for flautists wishing to enter the Paris Conservatoire was based entirely on the actual song of the blackbird. Later works such as 'Reveil des Oiseaux' (1953) and (the piece I first encountered of his) 'Couleurs de la Cite Celeste' (1963) feature 'actual' birdsong quite extensively as does, in fact, most of his work from the 1950s onward. (Many tapes of recorded birdsong were found in Messiaen's paraphernalia along with manuscript representations of them in standard notation).

Colour, of course, is another vital ingredient in both Patterson's 'Chromascope' and much of Messiaen's work - indeed it is implied in the very title of 'Cite Celeste'... I was impressed as a young musician with the compositional techniques Messiaen used to 'recreate' the depths of a cave and the way sounds passed through it...I remember him using deep, loud notes or chords, with very quiet 'overtones' or fake-harmonics high above it - almost imperceptible in the soundscape, yet just enough to manage completely to provide that 'depth' and send a shiver down the spine!

In 'Couleurs' and other works, such as 'Des Canyons aux Etoiles' Messiaen actually wrote the colours he was trying to represent onto the conductor's score - to aid the interpretation, however, not to influence the listener... I relate this to the way Debussy put the titles of his, often programmatic, Preludes (e.g. Voiles, La Cathedrale Engloutie, Minstrels etc) in brackets UNDERNEATH the piece...as if to encourage the listener to imagine for themselves before referring to the original intention.

And that brings me back to the brass band again. I'm not sure if it was on the same of my father's brass band LPs (although I'd like to think I am right in recalling that it may have been) on which I first encountered 'Chromascope' sat another piece that tried to represent colour: 'Spectrum' by Gilbert Vinter. This has always been one of my favourite pieces of band music and, in contrast with much of the music I have written about today, it is largely melodic and conventional in its harmonies and structure - and, like the others, well worth a listen!

Like Kate's teacher, when I was teaching I loved to present music to my students that would challenge their accepted ideals, widen their horizons...make them ask questions! I once went too far, I seem to recall...'8 Songs for a Mad King' by Peter Maxwell-Davies was too much for any GCSE group and I learned a lesson myself in class that day!!!

So, the only shame, as far as I'm concerned, was that Kate had a headache on the day in question...maybe she will listen again with a clear head (couple of paracetamol??) and an open mind...and she will, as we all will, find that music can usually find a way to speak to us in that very special way.

****************************************************************

*I have to acknowledge there is no such word as 'screechy' but...you know what it means nevertheless!

**fans of the 'Manic Street Prechers' may prove the exception - the Welsh rockers used an excerpt from the piece as an introduction to their track 'You Love Us' back in 1991.

October the Ninth

9th October, 1909 - Gwendoline Maud Brinkworth (my paternal grandmother) was born in Cardiff.

9th October, 1940 - John Winston Lennon was born in Liverpool. Gwen was 30.

9th October, 1962 - Marc Owen Harry was born in Wrexham. Gwen was 52 and John was 22.

9th October, 1975 - Sean Ono Lennon was born in New York. Gwen had died earlier that year, John was 35, Marc became a teenager.

**********************************************

Thus is my own family and the Lennon family forever linked. I so much wanted one of my own children to have been born on 9th October...but was not even close! Is it too late? It's my turn, after all! Maybe my (soon to be ex) wife and I never had enough early nights in January...

Nevertheless, the 9/10 date each year, having imposed itself four times in sixty-five years (against odds of 'goodness knows how many' to 1*) it is little wonder the number 9 held such a fascination for either John or I, is it? (#9 Dream, One After 909, "Revolution 9/Number Nine" etc.)

In fact, the number 9 crops up very often throughout the world of music - look at the number of composers who stopped (for one reason or another!) at 9 symphonies? 9/8 time (compound triple), nonet, the interval, several pop and rock band names (e.g. Nine Inch Nails, 999) and album titles (e.g. Public Image Ltd, Fairport Convention)...even John's fellow Beatle had an album called 'Cloud Nine'...

John would have been 69 today, my Nana Harry 'one after 99' - telegram from the Queen time...alas she has been returned to her Maker for some 34 years. But John is forever 40.

My mum woke me on that Tuesday morning in December 1980 with the words 'prepare yourself for a shock'...but nothing could have prepared me for her news...I sat on my bedroom floor tuning my radio from station to station trying to find one that would tell me John Lennon was NOT dead - but they all did the opposite! I made a 'shrine' in my bedroom window with album covers and my guitar before heading off to school. At school, my friend Colin Nicholson and I asked permission to hold a gathering during the next day's General Study period to play John's music...

...Permission was granted - on condition that for every record we played we performed 2 songs live! So, the next day, we prepared our little concert - expecting two or three others to attend. So many wanted to pay their respects to the murdered ex-Beatle we had to move out of the room into a bigger hall and Colin and I performed in front of rows of crying girls wearing glassless, round spectacles, Beatles scarves and wigs. It was the first time I ever sang while accompanying myself on guitar!

A few weeks before I had taken my place in the queue for one of the first ever 'midnight openings' in Newcastle City centre...to purchase the first new LP by John Lennon since 1975. 'Double Fantasy' had sat on my turntable ever since. The album has been unfairly criticised since its release but, for me, it's a gem of a record! I think much of the negativity is connected with the tired and ridiculous Yoko-bashing that still goes on in Beatles forums today. I've always found Yoko an intriguing, innovative artist - both in the musical and 'art' sense: one of the things that led John back to recording in 1980 was hearing female 'new-wave' singers like Lene Lovich whose 'new' sound was an old one to people who'd heard Yoko's output for the last ten years!

Yoko shared 'Double Fantasy' with John, alternating tracks (almost) throughout. Her first song on the album, 'Kiss, Kiss, Kiss', was one of those that, while living at home, I had to turn the volume down or quickly plug headphones in (along with tracks like 'You're Breaking My Heart' by Nilsson) for Yoko loudly and enthusiastically fakes a prolonged multiple orgasm as part of it...I wonder if that had ever been done on record before???

John's songs on the record I grew to love very quickly - '(Just Like) Starting Over', 'Woman', 'Watching The Wheels' and 'Beautiful Boy' in particular. The last of these became even more poignant in the weeks ahead - a wonderful love song to his 5 year-old son, Sean. "I can hardly wait to see you come of age," John sang. Of course, he never saw that day...

...But it does bring us round to where we started, doesn't it. 'Little' Sean, John's 'beautiful boy' is 34 today...just 6 years younger than his dad was when his life was stolen. So HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Sean...and John...and Nana Harry...oh and me too!

*I have several friends who are Maths fiends - none of whom I've been able to contact in the last 24 hours to calculate this one for me...if anyone comes up with a figure I'll re-edit the post!!!!

Oh good...National Poetry Day!!!

I used to love this day when I was teaching! Quite often I would entertain my classes with a newly written ode for the day...but more often it was the staff room who got the benefit - I once remember struggling my way through about 25 staff members at St Luke's with a limerick composed for each!

I started writing poems when very young - I recently found an old exercise book from 'Millbridge Upper', my primary school in Liversedge (Nr Heckmondwike), Yorkshire. Amongst imaginative stories about Aladdin's Lamp (no boring 'rubbing it' for me... the inscription on my lamp read: 'stuff stinkbombs down the spout and you will get a surprise!' In the margin - in red - Mrs Ingham's reply read clearly, 'so will you if you write this sort of thing again!') and King Xerxes sits a poem, complete with pencil drawing carefully coloured in: it's title was 'The Ustranoch'. It begins thus:

"The Ustranoch comes from Uranus

It's body is made from jellyus"

Maybe an inauspicious start - but I was only 7 at the time!

Poetry began to flow on a family holiday in 1981. We used to spend a couple of weeks each summer in one of the Salvation Army's holiday homes - alternating between Broadstairs, Folkestone, Westgate and Cliff House near Bournemouth. In retrospect, I'd say we were at Cliff House the most but that 1981 holiday was remarkable for many reasons... For a start it coincided with probably the most exciting Test Match of all time - the one that led to the England v Australia cricket series becoming known forever as 'Botham's Ashes'. The first item I wanted to take to the beach each day was my transistor radio...and I sat on the sand listening to Johnners, Boilers, Sir Fred, The Bearded Wonder etc. day after day as England toiled...*

My dad had turned his radio off in disgust as England lapsed to 135 for 7 in their 2nd Innings - following on and still nearly a hundred behind...history goes on to aver that at least two Aussies placed bets at 500 to 1 on an England win, never believing for a second that there was the remotest chance...But Sir Ian had other ideas and blasted 149, ably assisted in building a lead by the unlikely duo of Chris Old and Graham Dilley.

By midday the next day (it was Tuesday, July 21st, by the way) nobody had even ventured onto the beach - the tiny TV room was so overcrowded they had to move the TV into the lounge...and then even into the dining room as Bob Willis skittled the Australians out to take 8 for 43 and led the troops to the unlikeliest of all wins and the start of an irrepressable run of form that lasted the rest of the summer!

Please excuse that massive digression as I veer off-piste...it's the Ronnie Corbett syndrome again! Blame it on my passion for writing, for cricket and this absurd memory I was blessed with (I don't have to Google these facts and figures - they just sit waiting for the chance to leap out of my head!!!) Eight days later Charles and Diana were married at St Paul's and we crowded round the TV again in Westgate...but the excitement even of that Royal Wedding Day could not match the Test Match!**

Back to poetry...it was on that holiday that I also took a blue school exercise book and, inspired by an Edward Lear and Monty Python kick I'd been on, I began to write nonsense poems. Every evening I would be summoned by other guests to entertain them with the fruits of my day's labour - and they fed my writing habit with copious laughter and merriment - particularly one dear lady, Olive Daws, who laughed hysterically poem after poem! (Olive is the mother of David - now famous as one of the best cornet players in the world, of course!)

...And I've written poems ever since. I remember that once, while part of an entertainment team at Butlins in Bognor Regis I was challenged to write three poems in an hour on subjects nominated by the audience - I just found them today before I started writing this piece! Around 1990 I was persuaded by friends and family to assemble an official collection of poems and this I did, paying to publish it myself on school equipment. It was half a book of funny and nonsense poems and half of profound or reflective poetry. The first run of 100 copies sold out very quickly, as did a second run and I even made more after that...one or two tattered copies might still be knocking around somewhere. It was called 'Cortina Biriani' in deference to 'Carmina Burana', the famous piece of music by Karl Orff - the cover featured a plate of curry...sans meat but littered with rusting Ford cars, of course!

If I had to pick one poem to mark today, though, it would not be one from 'Cortina Biriani' but one that would bring me back to music (once again...all roads lead to music...) I wrote this poem while waiting for the last few finishers to leave a very boring Geography Exam I was 'invigilating' in 1994. Harry Nilsson had recently died and I wrote the poem to mark the passing of the singer/songwriter I still acknowledge today to have been my favourite pop/rock musician ever and also the most inspiring influence on my own songwriting.

It was later published in the Nilsson Fanzine 'Everybody's Talkin'' and, when we met in 2001, Curtis Armstrong (noted Nilsson historian and, of course, famous actor) told me it was his favourite poem ever. Most John Lennon/Beatles fans will be aware of John Lennon's 'Lost Weekend' - a period of some 18 months when he and Yoko went through a separation in the mid 1970s. John spent some of that time living in a drug and booze filled house with fellow hell-raisers including Harry, Ringo and Keith Moon (drummer from 'The Who').

John agreed (while drunk, he later claimed) to produce Nilsson's next LP - unfortunately for all concerned, by the time the sessions were underway Harry had raised hell to such an extent that he had ruptured a vocal cord and was coughing up blood whenever he tried to sing! His famously smooth, gliding baritone was reduced to a croaky rasp...yet he tried to hide the truth from Lennon and an LP was, finally, released - Lennon crediting his contributions to a pseudonym 'Dr Winston O'Boogie' - even the seemingly innocent cover of the LP (above) features toy letter-blocks...a D and an S...with a 'rug' inbetween...you get it?

I'm glad they made the album - 'Pussy Cats' - two of my favourites working together...it's not my favourite Nilsson album...but it's Harry and John, you know??? To other fans it obviously IS a favourite - American band 'The Walkmen' re-recorded the entire project as a tribute a few years ago! You can find out lots more about the album if you follow the Nilsson links from http://www.marcharry.com/ but...for now, here is the poem in honour of Harry, John and National Poetry Day 2009:

Pussy Cats

Sing a song of Schmilsson

A bottle full of rye,

O'Boogie, Moon and Starkey

Soon drank the bottle dry

So they opened up another

As the tapes began to roll

And, while Harry 'laughed his ass off',

The bottle took its toll.

And they 'had their share of good times'

And their 'spirits' kept them high

And they left us with an album -

And they left us wondering why

The Almighty, in His wisdom,

When He said 'My will be done'

Deemed 'pussy cats' get nine lives...

But our heroes only one?

(copyright HarryMusic 1999)

*these were the affectionate names beloved by all England cricket supporters who listened to the national institution known as Test Match Special on Radio 4 each summer - in turn the names referring to the wonderful Brian Johnston, Trevor Bailey, Fred Trueman and Bill Frindall...

**unbeknownst to either of us at the time, it later transpired that between these two momentous events my future wife and I had met for the very first time...or at least been present in the same Salvation Army service in Ramsgate...we realized many years later this was the case when we recalled the item for young people in the meeting involved a game of Chinese Whispers with the message to be passed along being "if it rains on Wednesday a lot of people will be very disappointed".

Whew!!!! It's not that I don't want to write this...but the last few days have been a whirlwind! Before I even approach the subject of music a few other bits...I've had the AA out twice to sort the car, youngest son Ieuan (5) has been ill, I had a freezer break down and lost all its contents, replaced it thanks to eBay (involving picking it up in Bognor), 2 trips to the dump with said broken freezer, old armchair and sacks of rotting meat...

...You getting the idea...? I know...we all have weeks like that! My saving grace was the weekend I just enjoyed...5 music events in 48 hours - whoop!

Lewis, Ieuan and I left Portsmouth on Friday afternoon and drove up the A3 listening to Jim Painton's 2 CDs (see my last posting...). Both Ieuan and Lewis gained new favourite songs in the process - Ieuan asked for 4 replays for 'The Girls From High School' while Lewis joined me as a BIG fan of 'Last Night I Saw Lennon'. We paid our respects to Jim from afar then...it was his funeral over in New Jersey last Friday...

Then we paid our respects to Lucy by listening to the song she inspired - if you hadn't seen the news, Lucy Vodden (the former nursery-mate of Julian Lennon who was painted 'in the sky with diamonds') died last week too.

The first concert was in Orpington...a fund-raiser for the local Rotary Club in a large, very full Crofton Hall. Most of the concert was performed by the "Force 10 Big Band". I have listened to big bands a fair bit (mainly Glenn Miller) but had never seen one play live before. This outfit was well-drilled and very competent with a very good male vocalist and 2 extraordinarily good saxophonists! I am far from a big fan of the saxophone and I have gone on record in the past to say so - but these 2 guys could probably convert me...a couple of their solos gave me the same 'tingle of wonder' I feel when Wakeman solos in 'Starship Trooper' or Dunnery in 'You'll Never Go To Heaven' - they are special, rare moments!

I sat at a nice Technics electric piano and made my contributions to the 'Songs From the Shows' evening performing, amongst others, 'Maria' (West Side Story), Edelweiss (Sound of Music - that one accompanied by my son Lewis on guitar!), and 'Love Changes Everything' (Aspects of Love). It all seemed to go down OK and several members of the audience informed me they thought my bits were the best bits...I'll take any praise :)

On Saturday evening I performed a 90 minute 'one man cabaret' for my cousin Andrea's church in St Mary Cray. A nice fish and chip supper washed down with a good old 'Army Cup of Tea' went down well and I entertained with songs, piano solos, poems and stand-up comedy! I extemporised a nice new solo based on Hoagy Carmichael's 'Stardust' and remarked on both that piece and my Beatles Medley that good music will always pass the test of time!

I even managed to grab a mid-cabaret cuppa while Lewis took over the entertainment performing Edelweiss by himself this time and following it with an impeccable rendition of Paul McCartney's 'Blackbird' - he never inherited those long fingers from me (and that's my excuse for not ever having been able to play guitar parts like that!!!) Well done, Looby...a true chip off this old block!

On Sunday morning we had a short drive across London to Camberwell where Portsmouth Citadel Salvation Army Band were the guests for two very high profile services at the William Booth College. The rest of the band (including my eldest son, Morgan) had left at some unearthly hour to arrive by 9.30. The band played pre-service music as the congregation and assorted dignitaries (including the General himself!) took their seats and played well during the service - a beautiful arrangement called 'A Gift of Love'. The acoustic of the hall, while a little 'boomy' for the spoken word, was ideal for transmitting 'The Portsmouth Sound'...this band has a special sound of its own, almost magically passed from generation to generation and it has been my privilege to have played with them now for over a quarter of a century (and 23 years as principal euphonium).

After lunch a pre-meeting concert included 'Prelude on Finlandia', Evelyn Glennie's beautiful 'A Little Prayer', 'Hymns of Praise' and 'To Regions Fair' (at quick-march tempo!) In the service the Gullidge march - 'The Fount' was very well-received. It is quite a thrill for me to realise that there are some 20 others in the band now who are younger than me - including 10 teenagers! The band is certainly playing better right now than at any time since 1987 and I'm sure PCB has a bright future ahead of it (as well as almost 130 years of history behind)!

So...having been a player/performer at four events it was finally time to sit back and enjoy someone else...

Francis (Frank) Dunnery explained the concept behind his House Concerts as his way of falling back in love with performing music. Having fronted 'It Bites' from 1984 until he left in 1990 and then launched a successful Stateside solo career he tells us he had 'been there and done it all'...Letterman, stadiums, drugs, alcoholism...the rock and roll life. But he reached the point where he'd had enough...so much so he withdrew to Vermont to train horses!

It was at this point that he wondered what it would be like to play small, intimate concerts in friends'/fans' front rooms! A notice on his website generated 3000 expressions of interest...and Sunday night's 'House Concert' was held in Geoff Banks's kitchen in Surbiton. About 32 people I counted crammed into the kitchen (complete with oven cooking spicy vegetable cous-cous for the after-show barbecue), some on chairs, some on floor cushions and others standing. Frank was nearer to me than I am now to my PC monitor - even closer than my first House Concert experience in Southampton a couple of years ago. Tonight was the 'It Bites and Ego' concert, Frank taking the opportunity to expound some of his philosophical views between the songs (he is studying philosophy and is also a confirmed devotee of astrology*).

His renewed interest in larger-scale concerts is about to be rubber-stamped with a band he calls 'The New Progressives' and a tour/album follow later this month. He has revisited many old It Bites songs for this tour and we heard very different acoustic versions of some of them in Geoff's kitchen on Sunday. With the added bonus of Frank's driver/merchandise seller being the lovely Dorrie Jackson - and hence she was able to lend us her gorgeous backing vocals - Frank sang us an almost unrecognisable 'Kiss Like Judas', 'Yellow Christian', 'Whole New World', the unreleased 'Holiday', 'Sister Sarah' and 'Underneath Your Pillow' as well as 'Back in NYC' from 'Lamb Lies Down' and finishing with 'Still Too Young To Remember'. We all sang along, Lewis and I adding harmony vocals, of course (Frank certainly noticed and appreciated this - actually taking hold of my arm and grinning appreciativelyat the end of one song ...wow!)

Afterwards, a 'meet and greet' where we were all treated as old friends and I learned the identity of the lady opposite me who I had noticed had sang every word of every song all evening - it was Frank's sister Fay - and she was very friendly and encouraging especially to Lewis, the budding guitarist! What a lovely evening and, yes, very much a surreal feeling to have been so very close to someone whose music has brought me so much joy and inspiration for so long!

The epilogue...back to Sidcup to pick up Ieuan and once more round the M25 and down theA3...arriving home well after 1am on Monday morning - It Bites music on shuffle keeping us awake and still singing on the journey, of course!

He shall have music wherever he goes!


*as I said to Lewis on the way home..."fantastic musician, great songs, lovely guy...mad as a fish!"

There's only one Jimbarino...

It was supposed to be the big one today - the long-promised 'What is Classical Music?' post...but, sometimes, things happen that change our plans... What did John Lennon sing on his last album? "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."

Today I lost one of the best friends I never met! I have been a fan of the American singer/songwriter Harry Nilsson since 1976 (the story of how this Harry met THE Harry is told on my website at www.marcharry.com/harrymetharry.htm ). Harry was the sort of artist who doesn't get books written about him...although he won Grammys and had number one singles and albums - and counted 'The Beatles' themselves amongst his closest friends and biggest fans. Harry was not the sort of star who gets biographies written about him...in fact there was not even a documentary until David Leaf's company made one a couple of years ago ( www.whoisharrynilsson.com ) - and for which I'm proud to boast an IMDb credit - but have still not seen!

I only started to learn more about Harry's life and music, having adored it for years, when I 'joined' the internet towards the end of the 1990's. I discovered a wonderful site run by Roger Smith (another big Nilsson fan from Florida) and found that there were actually a couple of hundred kindred spirits with me 'on-line'. Friends of Harry's, including his official discographer Andrea T Sheridan, long-time admirer and everyone's favourite 'Booger', actor Curtis Armstrong (Nerds/Moonlighting) and even Harry's eldest son, Zak were members of Roger's 'Jadebox Nilsson Fellowship'. We learned together some of the long-sought biographical details, gained a wonderful, ongoing insight into some of his recordings, contributed to a great fanzine and even got to meet each other at yearly fan conventions - or International Harryfests - one of which I was privileged to help organise at the luxurious Hotel Russell, London in May 2001.

One Nilsson pal I never got to meet in person - but in some ways felt I knew better than most others - was a very funny and talented man from New Jersey - Jim Painton. Jim contributed to Nilssonweb (and also to Beatles and Beach Boys lists I also 'inhabited') in a unique, and not always appreciated, way!

For Jim had what I now term a 'British' sense of humour, learned and honed at the feet of Monty Python...and, like mine, his was a pretty warped one...the kind that no doubt has got us both in a bit of trouble over the years! It is a humour many in the USA completely fail to understand. Let me give you an example: my sister made a lovely, supportive American friend on Facebook recently...around the same time as her cat Bobbisox was shot by a neighbour's rifle. After much prayer, 3 hours of surgery and copious amounts of antibiotics, Bobbisox survived. An English friend posted on Ruth's wall that he was rather tired of hearing about the troubles of the said cat..and joked that 'it ought to be shot!' Our lovely, American friend was utterly disgusted and horrified - totally failing to get the 'joke' and posted to that effect! It's all sorted now and that lady is now a good friend to my whole family! Jim would have got the joke...this was the guy who, after having had his cancerous bowel removed a few years ago joked about bringing it home to drape around the family Christmas tree as a decoration!

He was the guy who wrote songs about the tapeworm that lived (allegedly!) in Thomas Edison's intestines...another one about a newspaper reported accident that befell a giant 'Cat in the Hat' in an American parade ('The Cat in the Hat went Splat'). But, amongst this 'bizzaro' sat some fantastic pop tunes: 'The Moon is You', 'Last Night I Saw Lennon' and 'The Girls From High School' to name just three.

Jim and I swapped music files via email and snail mail in those early days: he sent me a copy of his 1st CD 'Painton A Picture' to love and cherish, introduced me to The Barenaked Ladies..and then I got some wonderful demos for his 2nd album which was eventually to be 'Painton Place'. Amongst them was a still unissued response from 'John Lennon's ghost' on the news that the 3 surviving Fabs were releasing 'Free As A Bird'...it's title was 'Please Don't Put Out This Turd'!

Jim encouraged me to finish and issue my own CD - and he championed it tirelessly in the States (where it was far more successful than here at home!) He got a track played by Dr Demento...and all this NOT JUST because he wrote the liner note/salutation and made the artwork at his 'day job' Painton Studios - but he genuinely loved the songs.

It was more than an honour when he asked me in return to write the liner notes for 'Painton Place' and it was such a thrill to see my little cartoon self on the CD artwork reviewing, sat on the floor, complete with headphones!

Jim's music never made him a fortune - though it deserved to! There is more good music on his two discs than in this weeks Billboard chart...or I'll eat the Cat in the Hat's hat!!! The world is full of unsung musical heroes - people who strive day by day to write and record beautiful, inventive, challenging, inspiring and, yes, at times even funny music and lyrics that all deserve a FAR wider audience than they will ever receive in these over-hyped, celebrity-dominated days full of disposable, forgettable songs and artists.

Sir George Martin once claimed that, had he not 'discovered' The Beatles in 1962, someone else UNDOUBTEDLY would have...for cream always rises to the top. Well, Sir George, that may indeed have been the case in 1962 - I hope so anyway...but it certainly wasn't the case in 2002...and, sadly, I doubt it ever will be again. Stars these days are MADE...invented by awful, fake TV 'talent' shows - and the cream today is almost always ignored...cream is bad for you, after all!

Another unsung musical hero of mine, John Young would agree: he astutely announced in a concert once (a small pub in a country village in front of about thirty people) that the wonderful Eva Cassidy would have never have been heard by any of us...had she not died so tragically and, of all people, Terry Wogan gave her a posthumous and incredible lift from obscurity to international superstardom.

My friend Jim died today.

I will be playing his CDs tonight...and all week probably. Unless Terry Wogan also hears them over the coming months I guess the only place you will be able to hear them will remain at www.cdbaby.com/Artist/JimPainton - go on...do it - there are even some free samples!

Do your ears a favour, smile and raise a silent one to my pal Jimbarino!

Only One Leonard Bernstein!

If ever a word was over-used in the musical world then it has to be 'genius'. I've lost count of the number of 'Joe Average' strummers, pluckers, blowers and mike-lickers who have been tagged with this precious word over the years. I'm not going to name and shame anyone...after all, they probably have never crowned themselves with that particular epitaph...and it would probably be very unfair for me to crown anyone myself...wouldn't it?

Well, what a boring blog that would make for you all to read! OK....I could stick to the 'no surprises' genius list: Mozart (was he the greatest natural musician ever?), JS Bach (I wouldn't nominate him 'cos I'm yet to become a fan!), John Lennon (a biased choice, of course!)...in fact the only choice I could make that might possibly be unarguable would be Brian Wilson...if I had a quarter of his musical brain I know I would be a far greater musician today than I am!

In case you're wondering, (ha-ha!) the word has even been applied to me on several occasions. In the words of Victor Meldrew, "I don't believe it!" Not even for a minute! But being a recipient still instils a very nice feeling of self-worth - especially when I have it in writing from no less than John Gowans, retired General of the Salvation Army!

So...who am I going to officially crown with the genius hat tonight?

Someone whose knowledge of music, understanding of it and ability to share his own love with countless millions of others has made him a part of almost all our lives, whether we know it or not: I speak of the great, late Leonard Bernstein!

Bernstein was not only a great composer - if 'West Side Story' was all he'd ever composed it would be enough, I guess, to earn him an place in 'Composer's Heaven'. Without doubt one of the best musicals ever written WSS deserves (even in the opinion of the snobbiest critic) equal footing with any opera of the 20th Century. Tunes like 'Tonight', 'Maria' and 'Somewhere' have earned their place in public consciousness and rightly so. What has always surprised me is that music lovers have not necessarily gone out of their way to discover Bernstein's other work...'Candide', the glorious 'Chichester Psalms' and his most unusual and innovative 'Mass' come straight to mind...it just seems that the public only want to remember WSS in association with Bernstein. So be it...

Even so, composing was, ultimately, a small part of the Bernstein legacy - he was a massively respected conductor - his interpretations of Mahler's Symphonies are the be all and end all for Mahler afficionados. He was never afraid to go against the accepted 'norm' in terms of interpretation of a piece...sometimes deviating so far from that norm that he managed to alienate even his own supporters...remonding us that no-one is infallible! I remember a disastrous interpretation of Elgar's 'Nimrod' (from the Enigma Variations) on live UK TV...it was so slow I swear the next day's scheduling had already begun by the time the piece ended!

But, for me, Bernstein's ultimate genius was his ability to share music with the masses through his wonderful lectures to young people. I've seen far too few of them (so far...I do hope more surface on TV/DVD) but they are an amazing insight into both a great musician's mind and also some wonderful music - opening doors to us lesser mortals in terms of musical understanding and interpretation.

The first one I ever saw concerned his own 'magnum opus', 'West Side Story' and Leonard described how he had built so much of that entire score on just three notes....(alarm!!! Muso alert!) He described them as C, F and B (natural...but sometimes flat!). If you play one after the other you will hear the opening (whistled) motif from the score (go on...make the C short, the F very long and the B short). Next, try C, F, B, C1, B, F, C, F, B, C1, B - getting there? The overture continues with C, C1, A, F, B0....

Maria starts...yes you guessed it: F, B, C (then FBCDBCDBC). Tunes based around C, F and B flat include 'I Feel Pretty', 'America' and 'Somewhere'...but they all do follow the rule!*

And the more you listen to the wonderful music of WSS the more you will acknowledge Bernstein's genius to do all this without making the whole thing sound contrived!

So check out some Bernstein...maybe stick the VHS or DVD in and have a good watch...enjoy his genius - I just checked, you can get it on DVD new for a fiver on Amazon (or £2.03 'as new' from marketplace)...so no excuses!

And I'll be using another of Bernstein's ideas to finally answer that question 'What is Classical Music?' tomorrow...so please come back...and keep the encouraging feedback flowing. I'm enjoying this, I hope you are too!


*allowing, of course, for transposition - it is the intervals that are common rather than the actual notes, of course - a whole musical in one key would be very irksome indeed!

The Curate's Egg is Out of Fashion!

I'm sure some readers will remember the quaint English tale of a young curate invited to tea with the vicar and his good lady wife. Given a boiled egg for tea he cracked open the top only to discover that the egg inside it had gone bad. Nevertheless, it being his prime duty that teatime to impress the vicar's wife and come over as the epitome of good manners, he somehow managed to eat the offending ovum and, when asked, "How was your tea?" he drew upon all the resources of grace God had given him by smiling and replying politely, "It was good...in parts!"

'Good in parts' is an opinion rarely experienced in the musical world today. I have found that most people are fiercely loyal to their musical favourites...with the possible exception of Genesis fans! Genesis fans fall into three very distinct groupings: the Gabriel-era fans, the Phil Collins-era fans...and the Gabriel-era fans who are brave enough to claim that the first three or four albums after he left are still worthy of the band's name! I think I fall into the latter group (probably the least inhabited group of the three I have found!) While I love the early pure-prog of 'Foxtrot', 'Selling England' and 'The Lamb...' I am persuaded to admit that 'A Trick of the Tail', 'Wind & Wuthering' and ''Duke' contain, at least some of, my favourite Genesis music.

However, 'Abacab' and 'Genesis' (ugh...'Mama') have not been heard in their entirety by me for at least two decades! That, as a Gabriel-era sympathiser, I am somewhat compelled to add!

And I digress again...Genesis not being the intended subject for tonight's outpourings! If I am honest there is something from almost all my musical heroes that leaves me a bit cold: For 'Yes' it would include 'Relayer', 'Talk', and 'Open Your Eyes', for Rachmaninov it's the 3rd Piano Concerto...love the 2nd more than almost any other single piece, enjoy the first...I KNOW some perfectly sound opinion rates the 3rd as the best of all...but it just won't do it for me!

I love the Mahler symphonies...but the 7th leaves me, for the main part, cold - and it's not just the Castrol GTX association! John Wetton = Jack Knife. Beethoven = Fidelio. Mozart = La Clemenza Di Tito. Pink Floyd = Animals. I could go on all night...all my personal opinion, of course!

Yet, when I enter a conversation with some people it seems I am defied to argue against opinions like, "Eminem has never made a bad song," or "I adore every note James Blunt has ever sung" or even "Wagner never had an off-day - it is all sublime!"

These are the music fans who have never tasted "The Curate's Egg". Of course, it may be that our eponymous curate is, in himself, a thing of the past...gone are the days when his whole perception of acceptance into a local community might depend on a spotless reference from the vicar's wife!!! For crying out loud, in half the parishes up and down the country the vicar himself is probably as gay as rainbow socks and, from my experience of twenty years working with vicars associated with a C of E school, it would probably more the case today that, should he be given a 'bad egg' to eat at teatime, a modern curate would stand up, put on his coat and exhort the vicar to come out for a pint, a smoke and a take-away!

It is 'the curate's egg' that allows us to clearly differentiate between the good and the mundane. I am a massive fan of Rick Wakeman - and in recent years have been privileged enough to even be able to count him a friend...but even I could never try to convince anyone that all Rick's output is wonderful...maybe I'd struggle even to say it's all good...in fact I hope even Rick could admit now that some of the stuff he has released (amongst the 100+ albums released in his name) are pretty darned awful!

So...a challenge for you all! In the comments box below I want you to show your good taste and balanced opinion by 'outing' a song or album by one of your own favourites that leaves you less in awe of their genius that most of the rest of their oeuvre! I look forward to seeing your choices and, maybe, I will even disagree...oooh, debate!

The Critic!

It was mum reminded me! Having started reading my blog she wondered if I might find a new career as a writer/reviewer/critic...and the word 'critic' opened up another dark and dusty corner of my memory!

When I was but a kid my crazy memory had already started to develop its retention skills...and one particular poem...or recitation....had a defining part to play in my upbringing...

I stood up, throughout my childhood, to participate in a great many Salvation Army festivals...sometimes as a singer, most often as a euphonium soloist...but I also got asked, from time to time, to recite poems! One about two frogs in danger of drowning in a milk churn comes to mind (but they kept on paddling and eventually turned it to butter and climbed out - the moral, never give up!), another about a lady in church who sat amongst the 'bad boys' on the back row...and one poem, in particular, came to mind this evening. Called 'The Critic' I must have recited it dozens of times...I even recall once singing it to the tune of 'Paddy McGinty's Goat'!

I'd guess it's out of copyright by now so here it is:

"He was sitting in the gallery, a-listening to the band

He thought himself a crictic and was feeling mighty grand,

As he loudly made his comments, so that all around could hear,

He made himself a 'perfect pest' to people sitting near:

"The cornets, they were terrible, their tone was really rough.

The basses couldn't do a thing, there wasn't half enough!

The trombones and euphoniums were ragged as can be,
The drums were poor, the flugel worse -

The horns played horribly!

The baritones were dreadful; the BM didn't seem

To get the men to follow like a good and balanced team."

Well, he counted up the errors and he didn't miss a fault

And so he carried on until a small boy called a halt.

"Excuse me, guv," the boy remarked, "You seem to 'ave it wrong!

This meeting ain't a contest - that ain't why they've come along.

These men 'ave got a message - it's an old 'un but it's true -

There ain't a band wot's playin' that could please the likes of you!

"That man what plays the monstre*, he's me father, do you 'ear?

He used to come 'ome sozzled and would sell me boots for beer

But 'The Army' went and found 'im, 'e got saved! I'm proud to say

'E's now the finest father - and I likes to 'ear 'im play!

"Now others in the band are 'toffs' and never 'ave been poor,

They love to play the music and they no what bands are for!

So don't sit criticising the good old Army band -

Just fink of all the good they do - My! Ain't that playin' grand?"

It's the difference between an 'Army' band existing for the reasons it does and the raison d'etre of an 'outside' band (as they are still referred today by Salvationists) that perhaps is highlighted most in the poem. 'Outside' - or contesting - bands compete frequently against each other...you only have to watch 'Brassed Off' to experience some of the competitive nature! I don't know if they still do this but the adjudicators used to sit behind a curtain and listen to each band's rendition of the 'test piece', making their comments - their critical appraisals - and, ultimately, deciding the order in which the bands would finish in the contest.

I only ever went to the Royal Albert Hall once for a contest - the testpiece was the 'easy listening' favourite 'Blitz' by Derek Bourgeois. I sat and listened to this atonal piece of programme music some twenty-odd times and vowed never to do it again! (I quite like the piece now but it was not my cup of tea as a teenager and it took a long time for me to forgive it!)

Yet the pretence of the curtain I found the most ridiculous thing...could the experienced adjudicator really not tell it was Black Dyke playing when the cornet solo was played by the familiar tone of Philip McCann? Even I could tell his sound a mile off! I remember the first time we watched the wonderful Patricia Routledge detective series 'Hetty Wainthropp Investigates' on TV for the first time - the theme music started and my dad and I both said 'That's Philip McCann' within a couple of notes. Surely the 'professional' could recognise all the bands without seeing them!

That's where criticism has its place, of course - and very much rightly so. 'Army' bands don't compete (and, as mentioned above) exist for an entirely different reason..but we like to do the best we can. Having played in a Salvation Army band now for some 37 years (man and boy) I like to think that the best of SA bands could hold their own with the best of the contesting bands - but I have no desire to ever see them have that opportunity...and neither would they!

So sit up in the gallery a-listening to the band...but enjoy the music - thank God for it if that's your 'thing' - but criticise at your peril! That young boy might be in the row in front...and you wouldn't want his sozzled dad to still be selling his boots, would you?


*the 'monstre' is the monster-bass - a BBb tuba some 5' or more high

Back to Reality

Back to Reality...is the title of my favourite episode of (one of) my favourite TV Series of all time! I speak of the wonderful 'Red Dwarf', of course - a true rarity in TV history being a science-fiction comedy series. I would find it an impossible choice to make if asked to narrow my preference down to just one series (or one album, or one song even...impossible!) yet I admit that most of my TV favourites, at least, have a link...

...The other two contenders would be 'Inspector Morse' and 'Auf Wiedersehen, Pet'...and the most eagle-eyed reader might have already spotted that link...a link of 'well-loved' that extends as far wide as the films 'Still Crazy' 'Sweeny Todd', and 'Lucky Break', as well as the Harry Potter films and the 1989 'Batman', Morse spin-off 'Lewis', and other TV drama series including 'Spender', 'Heartbreak Hotel' and 'Waterloo Road'...yes...all roads lead back to 'Auf Wiedersehen Pet'!

The 'Red Dwarf' episode I mentioned (featuring AWP's Tim Spall - aka Peter Pettigrew/Wormtail) sees the crew of the spaceship coming back down to Earth with a bang when they (mistakenly) come to realise they have only been playing a 'communal video game' for the entire duration of series one to five! In a similar way I have come 'back to reality' today after a week or so of such hectic musical activity it seems like Iwas caught in a (most enjoyable) whirlwind!

First, we had the much-hyped and previously discussed Beatles remasters and a 'Beatley' week par none - interrupted only by 'Last Night Of The Proms' - and this week has been a kind of personal Prog Heaven for me! 'Genesis' on the radio, 'IQ' in the car and both 'It Bites' AND 'Touchstone' live in concert! I don't manage to get to as many gigs as I'd like to these days (can't afford it!!!) but these two were very reasonably priced and with the added bonus of each band being the favourite of one of my 2 older sons (Lewis is the 'It Bites' maniac and Morgan loves 'Touchstone') - so they got a night out each...and I got two (har har!)

What a privilege I have as a dad to share so many musical tastes with my teenage sons! Neither of them are remotely interested in 'RnB' or 'DnB' or 'RaP'...if they were they might be invited to 'RiP'!!! When they 'discover' something I might like they are keen to share with me too...I struggle a little to appreciate 'Muse' as much as Morgan does, or 'McFly' as Lewis did but I do try - and we all listen happily together for the majority of the time!

'Touchstone' ( http://www.touchstonemusic.co.uk/ ) played last night at 'The Peel' in Kingston, Surrey (we arrived early, despite my playing organ for a wedding at 4pm back in Portsmouth) so spent a nice hour with my aunt and 93 year old Nana who still looks a picture of health!). I first encountered 'Touchstone' as a support band...Now, I've seen and heard some BAD support bands/acts in my time - some have been completely the wrong type of music for the audience, some have been so cocky they thought they were there to 'blow the main act offstage'...forgetting it was the main act we'd paid to see and not them! Others have been miles out of tune, boring or FAR TOO LOUD (I was deafened for the night in Brighton before 'Meat Loaf' even got on stage!)

So impressed was I with 'Touchstone' as a support slot that I felt I had to go seek them out by the merchandise stall and tell them/thank them...and a very friendly bunch they are too! Last night I saw them as 'headliners' for the first time in Kingston and a good time was had by all! The five-piece produce a very 'big' sound which would justify their performing in a far larger arena than 'The Peel' but the grandeur lost by playing a small venue is more than made up for by the real intamacy one is able to feel with the performers in venues like last night's!

Like the best of Rick Wakeman-era 'Yes', 'Touchstone's music is dominated by a vast keyboard back-drop courtesy of Rob Cottingham and his trusty Kurzweil (and expansion boards - hey! - the same 3 I use!). The rhythm section of Al (drums) and Moo (bass) are as tight as you could wish to hear; Moo's innovative work on a 5-string fretless bass is, I think, quite unique - and, at times, lightning quick - while Al, complete with new cymbals thanks to a well-deserved Sabian sponsorship, lends plenty of energy as well as thundering fills to the ensemble (though the less said about his flying underpants the better!)

Adam's guitar 'solo-swaps' effectively with Rob's keyboards while his general song playing ranges from power-chords through melodious counter-melody and numerous other styles...and over all this soar the lead vocals of Kim 'Elkie' Seviour. 24 year old Kim joined Touchstone in 2006 having answered an advertisement. In her early days with the band she shared the lead vocal duties with Rob but the latter's share quickly diminished as both the power of Kim's voice was recognised and also as her powerful stage-presence began to exert its sway over a legion of red-blooded proggers! And she's not shy...happy to describe herself as 'pen pusher by day - rock goddess by night!'

Even in these days of 'equal-ops' it is rare for a rock band to be fronted by a female - but as groups like 'Magenta' discovered...and as Touchstone now aver...the idea works...especially in the prog-rock genre - the higher pitch of the natural vocal sits very comfortably in an inevitably 'crowded' arrangement without further clouding that sub-middle C octave, giving the instruments more room to breathe and express themselves. (This is, in reality, also a secret of 'Yes' - Jon Anderson's counter-tenor occupies a similar space in the soundscape.)

Last night we heard most of the band's 2nd full CD 'Wintercoast': highlights, for me, being the title track, 'Voices' and 'Solace', Kim's emotional tour de force. The enthusiastic and noisy audience loved the 'audience participation' number 'Strange Days' while the surprise inclusion of 'Thriller' (yes, THAT 'Thriller'!) as an encore went down well.

There is no pretention with 'Touchstone' - barely going off-stage at all pre-encore (any pretence was merely to give Kim an excuse to tell herself off for succumbing to the tiniest ego-trip) - then, after the 2nd encore, it was straight off the stage and into the audience to thank and chat with their fan-friends! That's not rock and roll...but Touchstone are!

So...I'm a bit of the 'deflated Dwarfer'...'back to reality' today. Tonight, as I type, it's musical edification provided once more by an enjoyable but more mundane family life (watching 'Alvin and the Chipmunks' with youngest son, Ieuan - at just 5 not - yet - weaned onto prog!). When he goes to bed I might watch one of the new series of 'Lewis' that have been waiting patiently in their DVD cases for me...all roads lead to AWP, after all!

Mr Richland...I Know What You Meant!

Prog Rock, Beatles, Brass Bands, Brian Wilson? Just what is my favourite music? Who is my all-time favourite artist? If I had to choose just one???

I could beg (literally!) not to have to make that choice..but you readers won't let me out of it that easily, will you?

Ok...this will come as no surprise to my closest friends and family but that place of particular honour would go to an artist most music-lovers would claim not to know...yet you sing them one line and they say 'Oh! HIM!'

I speak of the great, late Harry Nilsson...and that's where the title of this blog entry finds its author. Nilsson (for those of you who still might say 'who?' I sing 'Can't live...if living is without you...' - and that's enough for now - you know at least one of his recordings*) wrote a song for his 2nd LP, 'Aerial Ballet' with the title 'Mr Richland's Favorite Song'. It told of a singer, once an 'untouchable hero'...up there on a stage, seemingly a million miles from his fans but, ultimately, a one-hit wonder! As the years passed by his loyal fans stayed for the third show, the second show and, many years later, he became 'the fallen star who works in a bar where yesterday is king' and where he 'calls his fans by name'.

In October 1982 I sat in a full to bursting Wembley Arena to watch the 'supergroup' Asia perform their first ever UK gig. What anticipation! What a thrill! There, tiny figures on the stage in front of me and my friends stood John Wetton (King Crimson, Family, Uriah Heep, Roxy Music UK etc.), Steve Howe and Geoff Downes (once of the great 'Yes'...and 'The Buggles'!) and Carl Palmer (exactly one third of the mighty ELP). They were untouchable, unreachable...like musicians from another realm, another planet even...a lifetime away from mere mortals like us in the audience! They sang and strummed their way through 'Heat of the Moment', 'Only Time Will Tell', 'Sole Survivor' and more of the songs I had already grown to love on the first 'prog' LP I ever bought. The night is as fresh in my memory tonight as it was then. I even recall the support act, a juggler of all things, called Chris Bliss - and he juggled with fluorescent balls and white gloves under an ultra-violet light. Bliss had a particularly blunt and effective way of dealing with hecklers (no doubt well-practised if you juggle habitually as support to rock legends!)...I dare not repeat his 'put down' on here (my mum reads this!) but, suffice to say, the same heckler did not transgess twice!

So, where is this going? Tonight I went with my 2nd son, Lewis, to see one of our favourite bands, 'It Bites' play a gig at Mr Kyps, Poole. I had never visited the venue before but it is a nice, intimate venue for a medium-sized gig (no doubt infinitely better these days as a result of the smoking ban!)

'It Bites' formed in Egremont, Cumbria in 1984. Four boys who went to school with each other, made a name for themselves then earned a record contract with Richard Branson's 'Virgin' Empire - and made the most of it by getting the early career 'hit' so eagerly sought by all new bands (see last night's blog for more info).

I saw 'It Bites' in 1990 in Portsmouth, I'd been a fan from their earliest days...but becoming a member of the band one day never even crossed my mind... Yet it must have been a dream for John Mitchell! John was a fan too...he recalls sneaking out of the house to go to gigs having raided a liquor cabinet to lubricate his enjoyment cells...and, no doubt, he honed his budding guitar skills by sitting - hour after hour, night after night - trying to emulate his hero, Francis Dunnery - lead guitarist and singer with his favourite band!

Tonight, John stood on stage as the front man of 'It Bites' - what a dream come true! John shared with some friends and I a year ago about the surreal situation he now finds himself in! When Dunnery quit the embryo reunion Mitchell took his place...what boots to fill!! Tonight he dominated the stage like 'Asia' did for me in 1982! A fairly small, though vociferous, audience lent him their support as they sang their hearts out through old faves like 'All In Red' and 'Still Too Young To Remember' - but the first half of tonight's show was dominated by a towering tour de force in 'The Wind That Shakes the Barley' - a new anthem to stand alongside the old favourites (and from the latest album).

When they retook the stage after a short interval 'It Bites' played the whole of what was almost universally acclaimed as their best album, 'Once Around the World'. Four stonking rockers launched the set in 'Midnight', 'Kiss Like Judas' (what a great track that is!),'Yellow Christian' (anyone out there tried playing in 14/8 time?) and 'Rose Marie'....and, later, the album ends with the band's 'magnum opus' - the epic title track of the CD which has elements of pop, rock, jazz, vaudeville and much, much more! 'Once Around the World', A Day In A Life...A cornucopia of genres that takes you from Caesar to Willie Carson in a quarter of an hour!

We sang our hearts out! We watched wide-eyed as John Mitchell's fingers flew like lightning over his frets, we marvelled at the solid and steady (and oft-times spectacular) drumming of Bob Dalton and wowed in appreciation at how the nimble fingers of keyboard genius John Beck held the sound together with his own personal orchestra of samples and patches...and, perhaps more than all, we wondered how bassist Lee Pomeroy was able to switch with such seemingly effortless ease from the steady 4/4 simplicity of being bassist for 'Take That' to nailing this music of infintely more complexity in his 'day job'!

I came away thrilled and entertained...my son, Lewis, came away inspired to practice and improve!

And what of Mr Richland?

Well, before the gig started tonight, I had the privilege to stand and chat once more with John Wetton...in 1982 that dot on a stage - tonight a friend and fellow 'fan'! Harry Nilsson's song personified...especially for me! If ever I could have wished for a bonus to make my evening this had to be it. This man has sold more records than anyone in this month's pop charts - quite possibly all of them added together!...and I have most of them in my collection! Recordings with 'Mogul Thrash', 'Family', 'Uriah Heep', 'Roxy Music', 'King Crimson', 'UK', 'Asia' as well as his fabulous solo albums have all given me endless hours of joy...and he stoood chatting with me again tonight! John is in better health now than last time we chatted socially! On my web pages at http://www.marcharry.com/ you will find a review of the night we met first of all...a night when John was in the grip of a serious and life-threatening alcohol addiction. That is now behind him...as he told me tonight 'but for the grace of God' he could have gone the way of Keith Floyd..but John still has much more music to make!

What a gift to us all music is! 'Johns' Mitchell and Wetton...I thank you from the depths of my heart! May it continue to flow for a long time to come!


*Note I say 'recordings' NOT compositions! Harry wrote the vast majority of the songs he recorded yet, strangely, his two biggest hits 'Everybody's Talkin' (Fred Neil) and 'Without You' (Pete Ham/Tom Evans) were composed by others. Ham & Evans were from British Beatles acolyte band 'Badfinger' and their sad, story (partly revolving around their battle for recognition as authors of the song) may well be told another day...

Once More Around the World...my proggy friends!

I have to concentrate!!! Seriously, I do! One of my very rare 'prog free' listening periods must come to an end tomorrow...Lewis and I drive to Poole for the 1st night of the wonderful 'It Bites' latest tour...the tour on which they will perform the entire 'Once Around the World' album - including the epic 14 minute and 48 second title track!

Not enough people even know It Bites exist(ed). My son Lewis started college today and his Music tutor was delighted to discover that he had a 'prog' fan in his group. As he briefly shared with Lewis about his love for Yes, Genesis and ELP Lewis mentioned that we were seeing It Bites tomorrow! The prog loving tutor had never heard of them!! Aaaaaaaargh!

It Bites were formed in Cumbria in 1984 and and their Warhol-ian 'five minutes of fame' came when their 2nd single 'Calling All The Heroes' reached number 6 in the UK singles charts. On the back of this success the group attracted many TV appearances and built a strong and loyal audience. Whilst, unashamedly, in those days It Bites were a pop/rock band I saw enough in a Saturday Morning kids TV appearance (in which they also played debut single 'All In Red') to catch my attention in a BIG way. Next time I met my musical 'oppo' Alvin, with whom I had shared 4 years membership of our own band 'Blood and Fire' and the man who first introduced me to prog I HAD to tell him about the band I'd 'discovered'...but, of course, he had also found them and had already bought the album!

This band was no Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet or Culture Club...here was a group of very fine musicians, led by the wonderful Francis Dunnery (who not only coped with being front man and lead vocalist but is amongst the best 2 or 3 guitarists I have ever heard!).

It Bites never repeated the success of their 2nd single. However, their 2nd album - the afore-mentioned 'Once Around the World' would still today head my personal list of 'best prog-rock albums EVER'...and with 'Close to the Edge', 'Foxtrot', and 'Brain Salad Surgery' amongst the opposition that is no faint praise indeed from this particular prog-head!

Picking up Lewis from college today I got my escape route from the ******** dominated listening of the last week (for stars substitute that group from Liverpool whom Kate seems to think I can't write a blog WITHOUT MENTIONING!)

Simon Mayo was interviewing Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks from Genesis as I drove...and my ears became attuned to a live version of 'I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)' from the box-set of live albums about to be released by the biblically-named proggers. Whilst the interview was highlighted by the live excerpt played (rare music on Radio 5!) and a funny debate about Pan's People's literal interpretation of the song on Top Of The Pops (including a real wardrobe!) at least my mind was turned towards prog at last!

What is prog, I hear some of you ask?

Hmmmmmm....I guess I see prog as a sort of middle-ground between the pop world and the classical/orchestral world (that blog on 'what is classical music' bubbles ever closer I feel...). It is rock music played by musicians who were probably good enough at their instruments to have 'made it' in any field...but chose rock! Prog 'songs' tend to be of 'epic' length...7, 10, 15 minutes rather than the usual 2.5 to 3 minutes that account for 99% of all hits in all pop charts. These songs probably do not limit themselves to one (or even 4) keys, change time signature more often than their composers change socks and have extended instrumental passages that allow the virtuosity of the players to come very much to the fore.

When It Bites split after their third album 'Eat Me In St Louis' I was devastated. Another fan in a similar catatonic state at that time must have been John Mitchell. John is younger than me but he had been to the gigs, been captivated by the music and, no doubt, longed for the day he might get to see his heroes take the stage one more time. Frank Dunnery went on to launch a successful solo career and hopes were raised after a solo concert at the Union Chapel in 2003 when the 4 members of It Bites took the stage together once more...talk on the forums later confirmed that a reunion was finally being attempted.

The biggest hurdle to the reunion was always going to be a Continental one. With Francis living in the USA and the other three still 'at home' in the UK rehearsal and writing time was always an impossible dream...and after several abortive attempts at getting the new project off the ground defeat was admitted to understanding but realistic fans...and that's the point at which all John Mitchell's dreams came true!

Sitting in front of amplifiers at home, fingers ever-growing in skill and dexterity, mastering intricate Dunnery riffs and solos...there must have been dozens or more who attempted it! Mitchell's effort seemed rewarded when he found success himself with his own band 'The Urbane', who produced two fine albums 'Neon' and 'Glitter', 1990's prog greats 'Arena' in which he was 'merely' guitarist...and then his next band 'Kino' arrived on the scene...

Kino's keyboard-player was John Beck...keyboard wizard with his own heroes, It Bites! The Kino debut album 'Picture' is a masterpiece in many ways and Mitchell richly deserved the plaudits the album attracted amongst prog-fans! Then, when Kino needed a new drummer for live dates, who should step in but Bob Dalton...yes, you guessed it, ex-drummer of It Bites! With Mitchell's fandom coming evermore to the fore it was natural indeed that It Bites songs like 'Plastic Dreamer' and 'Kiss Like Judas' made it to Kino's live set...

...and when It Bites' reunion hit the rocks - who better to bail the others out than a fan who could stand on stage and admit that years of Latin education at school meant nothing until he could translate the lyrics of 'Old Man and the Angel'? Mitchell became the new lead singer/guitarist of the reformed It Bites! Talk about childhood dreams coming true!!!!

Mitchell and Beck found that they wrote the same way as Dunnery/Beck once had done - the majority/main idea coming from Dunnery/Mitchell and the middle by Beck! A new album followed a successful re-debut tour...unfortunately (in some respects) they lost original bassist Dick Malone along the way...and WHAT an album it is!

I was privileged to attend a private listening party for 'The Tall Ships' with John and some friends last summer...what a wonderful night for Andre, Alvin and I - gaining insight at first hand to an album we all saw as the 'true' successor to 'Once Around the World'.

Tomorrow night we hear 'Once Around the World' again...live! I missed it first time around...it starts at 8pm in Poole...but I'll be driving away from Portsmouth soon after lunch! No Ringwood traffic jam is going to deprive me of this pleasure twice!

Ey Oop!!...It's a Brass Band!!!

Glamorgan and Yorkshire! What have they got in common?

Surely not much, must be the answer! Both parts of the UK, though in separate countries, the inhabitants of both would undoubtedly tell you! One is epitomised by the windswept moors of 'Wuthering Heights', the other by the tight, ever-loyal communities of 'How Green Was My Valley'.

The antipathy between the two is, at times legendary! Ask a proud Glamorgan man and a Yorkshireman to debate which is the better comestible delicacy between Yorkshire Pudding and Laverbread and a British civil war may erupt! Professional Yorkshireman 'Sir' Geoffrey Boycott, that legend of England's cricketing heritage, once famously refused to tour with the England winter team...because a 'Welshman' was captain! Yet there are links between the two areas that make them indisputable cousins...and bind the two proud heritages together as clearly as Cheddar is linked to cheese: coal mines and brass bands!

Even as recently as this past weekend the rivalry between the Cory Band of Wales and Black Dyke of Yorkshire was bitter and keen...the Brass Band Contest went to Cory...but many (even from other bands) went home to Yorkshire disappointed in the adjudication result! Such is the brass band world! If you ever need to know what brass bands mean to the people of Wales or Yorkshire one has only to watch the marvellous film 'Brassed Off'. If the great footballing philosopher Bill Shankley (the legendary manager of the great Liverpool team of the mid 1970s) was once quoted as saying that "football was not a matter of life and death...it's far more important than that!" - then, certainly in Glamorgan and Yorkshire, the same is as true - if not more so - of brass bands!

Yet where do brass bands 'fit' in the musical realm? They are not really taken seriously by the 'orchestral/classical' realm. And, although the Brighouse & Rastrick Band reached number two in the British pop charts with 'The Floral Dance' in 1977 they hardly belong in the world of 'popular music' either! In fact, outside of the mining communities, where their presence was so steeped in folk-lore and community spirit that they have outlasted the pits by far, there is only really one other bastion of brass banding that still thrives today - and that is, undoubtedly, The Salvation Army!

This branch of social protestantism, founded in Whitechapel, London by William Booth in 1865 is now a multinational church with activity in well over 100 countries. The 'Army' or the 'Salvos' are intrinsicly linked with lassies in bonnets with tambourines, amazing social work (in the UK today the SA is still the largest provider of social help apart from the governement itself)...and BRASS BANDS!

I have been a Salvation Army bandsman for 33 years this Autumn - but if you include service given while still in short pants - you can make that over 40! I started to play aged 5 when living in Bargoed - one of those coal pit villages in the Rhymney Valley, South Wales. My dad wrote out 'Onward Christian Soldiers' on staves ruled on the back of a cornflake packet and I marched around the front room learning, then playing it until he regretted it!

Tonight I shared with 32 others in a Salvation Army band rehearsal here in Portsmouth. There are not many rehearsals remaining now until the recording sessions for the band's next CD - their 3rd and the 11th album in total since 1968, which marked the band's first excursion onto vinyl. (There is a very rare recording of a 1956 radio braodcast which exists on coated metal discs that predates these but I only know of one copy that still exists...quite amazingly, Alex Manning, who played on that recording, is still the band's flugel-horn player today! He also owns the discs!)

Brass banding and coal-mining both instil into its participants an unbreakable bond of cameraderie...a deep friendship that transcends Yorkshire v Glamorgan or Cory v Black Dyke. At the end of a concert or contest the bandsmen will put sweaty arms around each others' shoulders and share a pint (or in the Salvation Army's case a steaming hot cup of tea!) and life will go on!

Bill Shankley's football could learn something from brass bands, I think!

What's your favourite???

I don't think there'll be a lot today...but we'll see...

I LOVE being a dad! I've had three sons who have all filled my life with much more joy than stress and hassle for the last 18 years! Today, my youngest son, Ieuan (pronounced Y-eye-un for those who've never even heard of a country called Wales!), came home from school singing a song he'd been enjoying in class today...and which brought back some very fond memories from a long time ago (doesn't music do that to us all the time?)

My parents moved to Bedlington in 1979 to be the ministers of the Salvation Army Corps in that lovely, Northumberland town. I was just 16 so, naturally, went with them and lived there for 2 years before leaving home for college, going back for holidays until they moved on themselves in 1982. One of the great joys I know my father had in that time was meeting a lovely-natured, little, red-haired girl who came to the Sunday School there.

I remember dad lined up quite a number of the youngsters on the platform one Sunday and went along the line asking them what their favourite Sunday School song was. Little Joanne not only told him - but offered to sing it for us as well - so she did:

"If I Were a Butterfly" lists all the things a child might do if they were that creature - thanking God for butterfly wings, elephant's trunks, fishes wiggling tails and giggling with glee, jumping like a kangaroo, etc. Joanne punctuated her solo by making each movement she could - especially the kangaroo hop - and this was so memorable because she was born severely disabled. She was able to stand with calipers as a child but has subsequently spent the rest of her life in a wheelchair - yet she has maintained that happy disposition ever since and still 'thanks God for making me me!"

She finished her song, then asked my father, quite spontaneously, what his own favourite Sunday School song was, Unprepared for the question he thought as quickly as he could and replied "I'd Rather Be A Little Thing Climbing Up Than A Big Thing Tumbling Down!" As my dad spent the vast majority of his adult life - like me - at well over 20 stones (300lbs) you might imagine the laughter his 'favourite' brought to the congregation!

Ieuan and I sat after school today and sang the song together and these memories came flooding back! Now he's on the floor playing with his pirate ships and singing again, "a bottle of rum to warm my tum and that's the life for me!" What DO they teach 5 year olds in school these days???

Within You and Without Understanding

I woke up today to tend a pukey son...and (both things are, I assure you, completely unrelated!) to Dauber's Facebook status about The Beatles song 'Baby You're a Rich Man'...surely one of their least known (and therefore amongst the least 'loved') songs. In fact I had to play it to remember exactly how it went (I can internalise most of the group's work without actually playing it).

Like 'Hey Bulldog' (prior to the reissue of Yellow Submarine a few years ago when it was restored to the movie), 'Bad Boy', 'Old Brown Shoe' and a few other B-sides it is one of the tracks that just don't get played too often by most fans...

...But they are still not the LEAST played, nor the least understood...those honours go, undoubtedly, to George's 'Indian' tracks. I know that many 'fans' skip those whenever they encounter them! There's 'Love You To' from Revolver, 'The Inner Light' (B-side of Lady Madonna) and, of course 'Within You, Without You' now track 8 of 'Pepper' but, for so long, the first song on side two and easy to skip even on LP!

When I first discovered The Beatles I thought these were 'funny' songs...I used to listen to them all together after dressing up in robes, wearing a wig and beads, lighting joss-sticks and sometimes even cooking a curry! But there is a serious parallel here with a problem I encountered many times later in life when I became a teacher...most people (and it is especially true for young ones) LIKE what they UNDERSTAND and tend to shun or mock what they don't!

My ambivalence towards these songs (I neither particularly liked them nor dislliked them...they just were...) was not helped by the reference book I trusted in those days to teach me about The Beatles: I had (on almost permanent loan from the library, then my own copy) a rather useful LP sized tome called 'An Illustrated Record' by Roy Carr and Tony Tyler. This book told the group's story in chronlogical order, listed the recordings (including who sang what - useful until I was able to tell by myself every time!) and it reviewed the albums song by song. Carr and Tyler's bias against George Harrison was evident to me even when I was a lad...but, in retrospect, it truly is appalling! Having given half a page to A-side 'Lady Madoona' they dismiss George's flip-side with a single line - the highlight of which is made up of three words: 'feeble, trancendental tune'. Their treatment of George throughout the rest of the book is rarely much better!

I had to teach Indian Music as part of the National Curriculum (the proscribed set of orders given by the British Parliament to its schoolteachers) and, of course, it was only when I studied it myself in order to teach it that I began to UNDERSTAND it...and George's three songs began to make musical sense to me!

In brief (and this is a very simplified precis, so don't jump down my throat!) Indian music consists of four elements:

• a drone - much the same as in bagpipes or hurdy-gurdy. The drone is played on an instrument called the tambura (or tanpura, depending on which book you read). The tambura is very similar to a sitar (the main melodic instrument in much Indian music). The main difference between the two is that, because the tambura only plays the drone, it is not decorated and made an ornate object of beauty as its more illustrious sister is! The drone usually consists of three alternating notes - in our parlance the key-note (tonic), the fifth above it and the next tonic a fourth above that...back to the fifth and then the first note again to repeat the pattern (so, in C it would be C-G-C1-G-C-G-C1-G etc). Well, that's a rough idea anyway!

(TRY IT - if you have an instrument handy try playing that pattern - letting the notes 'ring' so they overlap works best)

• a raga - this roughly equates to our scale but, in reality, is so much more. Whereas we have major, harmonic minor and melodic minor (and modes from a bygone era) there are some 350 different ragas in Indian Music - each related to a time of day, mood, colour or feeling. You would not play a morning raga in the evening, for instance - it just wouldn't happen traditionally! Indian melodies are made up of the notes in the chosen raga, usually beginning with a straght series (scale) up and down and getting more and more complex as the peice develops.

(TRY IT - if you have that instrument handy try playing an afternoon raga - marwa:

C Db E F# A B C then down C B A F# E Db C (put it with the drone!)

• a tala (or tal) - tala is made up from 2 Indian words meaning clap and dance...and there are some 280 or so talas you can choose from. Each is a rhythm pattern (or cycle) of different lengths and with accented 'beats' and 'silent' ones. The most cmmonly used tala by far is Tintal - a 16 beat tala with accents on 1st, 5th and 13th beats and a 'wave' or silent beat on the 9th. Although the tala traditionally stays the same throughout a single piece the music does get faster and faster!
• improvisation - yes, all Indian music is traditionally improvised! You choose an appropriate raga, choose a rhythm cycle, add a drone and...off you go (within 'form advising' guidelines). So, no two performances should ever be identical! (In these days of worldwide recording it is hard for artists to adhere to this tradition - if an audience wants to hear something they are familiar with through previous listening then 'the audience knows best' is the oft-followed maxim!)

Listen for these elements not just in the next Indian Music you hear (probably over a Lamb Bhoona in the local Tandoori House) but also in George's songs - they are there to some extent! We had 'Pepper' on in the car today and 'Within You, Without You' is a good example in which to hear some, if not all, of these elements.

(If you still have that instrument handy use the same drone as before while improvising with a 'scale' of E F G A Bb C D Eb. I have no idea if this is a 'real' raga...but most of our 'modes' are also ragas and there are 350 of them so it's 'quite likely' it is! Oh look...you're playing 'Within You, Without You'!!!)

I sincerely hope I haven't gone over the heads of 'non-muso' readers today, that was not my intention. My original aim in writing this blog is not just to entertain and edify but also to educate - something my general health now prevents me from doing as I once did. So, if I lost you somewhere above, please forgive me...and do come back again! If you had that instrument handy I hope you had fun - bet you never thought you'd be improvising authentic Indian music in about 5 minutes! But there you are.

Maybe Roy Carr and Tony Tyler should have tried it - they may understood poor George a bit better - or maybe they could have created something a little better than his 'feeble, trancendental tune'!