I Got You Covered....

I wanted to write today...but didn't know what about...so I went for as nice, relaxing bath - putting my BlackBerry on 'shuffle tracks' and settling back.

The bath lasted five tracks...and all five were cover versions! I had members of Yes, The Doors and Styx covering Pink Floyd's 'Don't Leave Me Now', John Wetton covering Genesis's 'Your Own Special Way, Harry Nilsson singing Jimmy Webb's 'Campo De Encino', The Beatles paying their tribute to Chuck Berry and 'Memphis Tennessee' and then a surprise!

I knew the song 'Vine Street' and have done for decades - it is the opening song on Harry Nilsson's 'Nilsson Sings Newman' album (a whole album of cover versions, of course). But this was certainly not the dulcet tones of a young Nilsson's tenor...and it wasn't Randy's unmistakeable tuneful croak either!

So, I had to get out of the bath! Turned out (as many of you more astute readers will have noticed) to be Van Dyke Parks and a CD I'd only recently purchased (but long wanted) and not yet listened to - 'Song Cycle' - on which every song is a VDP original...except for that one which, like Nilsson, opens the album! After that I had to rifle through my archive to see if I actually had a Randy Newman version...and I did, albeit a demo, as part of the 4CD retrospective set 'Guilty'.

I'd already been thinking, during the bath, about the concept of 'covers'. Prior to The Beatles the accepted 'norm' was for professional songwriters to write the songs, a record producer to find them and suggest them to a group or artist and 'away you go'. We all know how George Martin wanted The Beatles to record and release 'How Do You Do It' and managed to prise an unenthusiastic and reluctant studio version from them only for John to successfully argue that 'Please Please Me' was better and even suggest the 'surefire number one' be given to another of Brian Epstein's groups, Gerry & the Pacemakers. (It followed Please Please Me to Number one in the UK charts two months later, by the way!)

The Beatles and many other 1960s artists certainly blurred the lines between songwriter and artist to such an extent that, a decade later, almost all artists and groups wrote the majority of their own material - and that became the new 'norm' and, to some extent, still is today. There were (and are still) professional songwriters - but Tin Pan Alley was never quite the same again.

Cover versions and Nilsson have always made an interesting subject for debate. Harry was, undoubtedly, a marvellous songwriter, yet his career will forever be marked by the fact that his biggest hits were cover versions - most notably Badfinger's Without You and Fred Neil's Everybody's Talkin'. Harry wrote plenty of songs that became hits for other artists including The Monkees, Three Dog Night and David Cassidy - but the irony remained!

Such is the enormity of the number of cover versions associated with the music of Harry Nilsson that my friend Tom Westendorf has managed to put three 'packages ' of songs numbering 580 songs together for a yearly series of internet radio specials called 'Harry All Day'. (Artists featured are as diverse as actors George Segal, Robin Williams and Curtis 'Booger' Armstrong, The Muppets, The Turtles, Brian Wilson and Keith Moon...and even a couple of efforts by yours truly (happy indeed to share such exalted company!)

They say Paul McCartney's Yesterday is the most covered song of all with many thousands of official record and CD releases (goodness only knows how many millions of times it has been sung in bars and clubs and concert halls around the world in the last 45 years!)

Next week Brian Wilson himself releases a whole album of Gershwin 'interpretations' - said to be so much more than mere 'covers' - like Nilsson, I expect Brian to prove he has the genius to 'make other people's songs his own!

The funny thing is, if you'd asked me (before the bath) how many 'cover versions' I had on my BlackBerry I'd have probably guessed at less than ten. For my 'shuffle' function to find five consecutively out of a total of just under 2,000 songs I'm guessing there's a fair few more than that!

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PS - I can't help but think this post makes for a fine game of '6 Degrees of Separation'. Many of the artists mentioned are barely a degree of one away but I find I can even get from Styx to Brian Wilson in one...so I doubt 6 degrees would be needed anywhere!

Are you listening...or just hearing?

It was one of my favourite questions to GCSE students at the start of their 2 year course! Not worded quite like that, to be honest...I preferred to inject a little bit of fun: "How many of you listen to music while you do your homework?" was more like what I would have asked. Every time, every year, every hand went up. I would shake my head with a wry grin and accuse them all of being liars!

What a great way to provoke a wave of indignation! "But I DO!!!" would come back at me from all corners...and so I would go on to prove my point! Shaking my head, somewhat, I would ask them to 'listen' to a piece of music I had carefully pre-prepared! As soon as they heard the harpsichord arepeggio that led into an operatic recitative I watched the lights go out around the classroom...pupil by pupil the eyes glazed over. Which was something of a shame, really, for the words I sang on the recording included the lines, "Come, touch me on the shoulder and this fiver shall be yours!"

As the music played I took a note from my wallet and placed it, for all to see, in front of me on the desk. I waited for the music to stop, looked around the room in a questioning way for a few moments, then placed it back into my wallet. I never parted with the note in 15 years!

Of course, I would always be asked what I'd been doing with the money and I replie

d each time by writing four questions on the board:

1) Which instrument provides the accompaniment for this song?

2) From which type of work might this excerpt be taken:

a) a symphony

b) an opera

c) a pop song

3) What might have happened had I listened to the words properly first time through?

4) Write a sentence or two about the difference between listening to music and just hearing it.

Of course, second time through, the music was 'listened to' properly, one or two jokers might even try to touch me on the shoulder...but the fiver was staying in my pocket! We would go on to discuss the differences between 'hearing' music (as they now all admitted they did while doing homework) and really listening to it! An important lesson was learned very early on as part of a GCSE course that relies heavily on the ability to listen to music 'properly'

But I have discovered over the years that some people really CAN'T listen to music in the way I do (or the way I might want them to). Listening to music and enjoying it has a pre-requisite requirement* that you 'understand' what you are listening to, at least to some ext

ent. Let me explain:

If I were to play some little known excerpt of 'classical' music** to a brand new class of Year 7 pupils (11 years old) - for example, Bartok's Violin Concerto (see link below) - with the instruction from me to simply 'enjoy it', I may as well give a toothless man a 16 ounce steak with no knife and fork with the same directive! He would choke and they would, at least, feel sick!

On the contrary, if I asked the pupils to listen for the 8 note introduction by the harp, then hear how it is joined by the plucked (pizzicato) bassline played by cellos and basses - with a single French Horn note above - then, at least they will have some chance of 'digesting' at least a part of the musical 'steak'.

(The Bartok - here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcJx4KkAzW0 )

Of course, it's this very fact that makes The Beatles easier to 'listen' to than Bartok; why (Glenn) Miller sold more discs than Miles (Davis) and why Cheryl (Cole) gets more downloads than...I dunno...Sade!

It's instant palatability - the same reason more people eat bubble-gum than broccoli or drink Ribena rather than rootbeer! And***, if we never venture beyond the instantly appeasing we may go our whole lives without experiencing Elgar, reading beyond Seuss to, say, Salinger...or even doing something as basic as enjoying olives and anchovies on a pizza!

I'll happily admit that when my friend Alvin first played me the music of Yes I 'didn't get it'! When I first played the music of Eric Ball it went over my head! Just like my first month of doing the Telegraph crossword saw one or two clues a day filled in! Fortunately, most of us can continue to LEARN all the way through our lives...and thank God for that!

So...next time you do your homework or have the radio on while you do your housework why not sit down quietly for five minutes and REALLY LISTEN. There's a whole new world out there!

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*at this point I have a vision of my old English teacher, Trish Gilbert, admonishing me for a) starting a sentence with an adjective and b) breaking another rule whose name escapes me 31 years later about using two words with the same meaning...like saying, "Personally, I...". Sorry Mrs G!

** definitely a blog subject for another day: "What is Classical Music?"

***Oh-oh...he's at it again Trish!

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!