Richard and Linda Thompson - Shoot Out The Lights

I went on a bit of an English folk binge in my local record shop today, and picked this up as part of it.

I’ve really got into their First Light album recently and this led me to re-watch the Richard Thompson documentary, A Solitary Life. All things considered, Linda comes over really well. The bit about them touring after he’s left the relationship is quite an uncomfortable watch.

I really love her voice. And I love their combined voices. Once you know what was playing out in their lives when it was being written, it kind of makes you wince and go “oof” at times.

It’s fucking great.

#NowPlaying
#Vinyl
#RichardandLindaThompson
#ShootOutTheLights
#FolkRock
#Music

John Spithead

2025-07-27 00:14:49

This is a strange affair

Richard & Linda Thompson - First Light

This album was the Thompsons’ return from a three year sabbatical spent in Sufi communes, about which Linda was later quite scathing. The songs are along broadly spiritual themes, but you wouldn’t know it, because they’re so well-hidden. However, Richard’s songwriting style is always right there, front and centre.

It’s a good album, albeit a slow-burning one.

Linda's voice is great.

It has an interesting cast of players, including 70’s show-tune queen, Julie Covington, Andy Fairweather-Low from the Amen Corner and Maddy Prior from Steeleye Span, as well as the top session musicians of the day.

Today I learned: Richard Thompson was once in a band with Hugh Cornwell of the Stranglers.

#NowPlaying
#Vinyl
#RichardandLindaThompson
#Folk
#FolkRock

Swamp Dogg - Rat On!

I like a record that seethes with anger. Swamp Dogg is an artist who, despite his often clownish persona, has a foundation of rage, and – when that breaks through – he seethes so well.

This album, for example, is more famous for it’s sleeve, which always features in those worst record sleeve lists. However, it contains God Bless America For What – a song so simmering with rage, it's breathtaking. There’s no ambiguity about this one – no-one’s mistakenly singing along with this one at MAGA rallies. It’s a lyric that got him (what we would now call) shadow-banned by his record label and sued by the Irving Berlin Foundation – all grist to the Swamp Dogg anger mill.

Rat On! is probably the quintessential Swamp Dogg album: it sits right at the intersection of soul, blues, rock and country, has songs about complicated personal entanglements, race, politics, a perfect cover version (The Bee-Gees’ Got To Get A Message To You), some kind of self-aggrandising statement in the sleeve notes, and an eccentric cover.

#NowPlaying
#Vinyl
#SwampDogg
#RatOn
#Soul
#Music

O.V. Wright - The Bottom Line

I picked this up as a cut-out at JiFS records in the early eighties, purely on instinct. It’s probably been in my top 5 soul albums since.

Until today, I’d always assumed that Wright had been quite old when he recorded this, based on his fragile, old-man-with-ill-fitting-dentures-losing-his-life-savings-to-an-online-pig-butchering-scam sounding vocals. The power of the internet tells me he was thirty fucking eight when he released this.

He had lived a bit of a hard life and had spent the mid-70’s banged up in prison for drugs offenses. He then signed to Hi Records for his final three albums, of which this is the first. He died of a heart attack whilst at work in 1980 and was buried in an unmarked grave, until funds were raised for a headstone nearly 30 years later.

The great Willie Mitchell does a spectacular job on production. It’s both beautifully lush, with horns, strings and backing vocals galore, but still very southern and raw.

Also, can I just bring your attention to the record label in the above picture, where the blue had holds the spindle? Class.

#NowPlaying
#Vinyl
#OVWright
#TheBottomLine
#Soul
#HiRecords
#WillieMitchell
#JiFSRecords
#Music

Rick James - The Flag

This was an album I really wanted when it came out in 1986, but didn’t buy...until this week.

It’s widely regarded as being James’ worst album, what with it being his final album for Gordy and him going through the end-of-contract motions, and his voice being ravaged by his enthusiastic cocaine use. But, you know what? It’s not too bad.

There are benefits to an album being considered generally shit. It was cheap and has never been played.

This was touted as his ‘political’ album. In order to reinforce this, the sleeve has James standing in front of an anarcho-syndicalist flag background, and on the rear and inner sleeves he’s holding little anacho-syndicalist flags.

Honestly, I had no idea what anarcho-syndicalism was in 1986 - I had yet to be fully radicalised by the woke leftists. James, however, was well ahead of the game: the album features such tracks as The State Is A Result Of Class Stratification, Established And Maintained In Order To Protect The Monopoly Of Capitalists Over The Economy, Direct Action, and the ballad Workers Must Prepare For The Overthrow Of Capitalism And The State.

It doesn’t really, more's the pity – it’s just more songs about 'freaks' and his cock. And one song about nuclear war.

#NowPlaying
#Vinyl
#RickJames
#TheFlag
#Funk
#AnarchoSyndicalism
#Music

Kurt Weill, Lotte Lenya, Wilhelm Brückner-Rüggeberg – The Threepenny Opera / The Berlin Theatre Songs

I picked this up years ago in a charity shop in Redditch, which has always struck me as rather incongruous. I don’t know what I would expect to find in Redditch, though.

It’s a box set of 1958 recordings, released in 1974, with the most 1974 cover art ever. It comes with a libretto in both German and English.

I’ve always liked the song Mack The Knife, and it’s interesting to read the lyrics in direct translation: ‘And the shark has teeth, And he wears them in his face’.

Originally produced in the Wiemar Republic in 1928, The Threepenny Opera is a critique of capitalism from a socialist perspective. Not long after, most of those involved were either in exile (like Weill and Lenya), imprisoned or killed by the Nazis. Oh well, there were very fine people on both sides, I suppose.

#NowPlaying
#Vinyl
#KurtWeill
#LotteLenya
#BertoldBrecht
#TheThreepennyOpera
#TheBerlinTheatreSongs
#Opera
#Music

Larry Young - Larry Young's Fuel

I sometimes find myself in the position of pulling a record off the shelf and thinking, “I’ve not played this much – I bet it’s great.” For someone who tends to be something of a pessimist, this is an oddly optimistic kink in my psychological make-up.

It’s an unusual album, this.

Larry Young had played on Bitches Brew five years prior and was clearly still in that groove. There is no doubting whose name was on the record sleeve here. Young would’ve been sitting in front of the mixing desk nudging up the keyboard faders, and proclaiming, “More keyboard!”

And, after all, this is what gives rare groove classic Turn Off The Lights its odd-ball charm.

The rest of the album is a much more challenging listen. It has a kind of proggy ELP vibe at times. And I’m not sure that’s a good thing.

This is a demo copy of the album and came with a biography and 8x10 glossy headshot, which is nice.

Interestingly, the biography, spends two-and-a-bit sides telling us about Young’s credentials, then only addresses the actual album in one, rather damning, line:

‘The album’s sound takes on a distinct character created by Young’s simultaneous playing of all the keyboards involved. (Moog, organ, piano, Fender Rhodes electric piano.) He is very pleased with the results.’ - LOL.

#NowPlaying
#Vinyl
#LarryYoung
#LarryYoungsFuel
#JazzFusion
#Music

Various Artists - Rastafari: The Dreads Enter Babylon 1955-83

Not my album, this – it’s my wife’s.

Not my anecdote – it’s also my wife’s: she was teaching adult education in Birmingham. The class was mainly men from a Caribbean background, including a couple of rastas, and one white lady in her fifties with a west country accent, who's a bit of an odd-one out.

Anyway, one day the woman tells this story to her classmates. As a little girl, she lived in Bath. She used to walk to and from school through a park and would stop and talk to an old gent who used to spend his days sitting in the park. She’d go home and her family would say, “Did you see your friend today?” and she’d tell them about their chat. (It was a different age.) Anyway, that old gent was Emperor Haile Selassie, who was exiled in Bath at that time. Collective jaw-dropping.

My anecdote: our band had given up supporting big name acts. It was almost always an awful experience. Then someone offered us the support for Laurel Aitken at the Market Tavern in Kidderminster and we made an exception.

Aitken, who appears on this album, was making a living playing to the ska/skinhead/scooterist crowd around the UK.

So, we turn up at the venue and there’s Aitken, in a pork pie hat, bomber jacket etc, looking like the full rude boy. I think, rather cynically, that he must be dressing to impress his audience, you know? Anyway, he was really delightful and friendly to us - which he didn't need to be.

Just before he plays, he pops into his dressing room and changes out of his rude boy clobber into his stage gear: a Val Doonican sweater and slacks.

#NowPlaying
#Vinyl
#Rastafari
#VariousArtists
#SoulJazzRecords
#Reggae
#HaileSelassie
#LaurelAitken
#Music

Tubby Hayes with Clark Terry - The New York Sessions

Back in 1985, I bought DJ Paul Murphy’s compilation Jazz Club #2, which featured Tubby Hayes’s Pint Of Bitter. I always found it incredible that British jazz from 1961 could hold its own amongst the pick of US jazz favourites.

Pint Of Bitter was taken from this album. Well, I say this album, because what I’m playing today is the fourth iteration of this album, released in 1990: it’s been called ‘Tubbs in N.Y.’, ‘Tubby the Tenor’, and ‘Tubbs in New York’ in its time, with the sleeve becoming more shittified with each progression. To add insult to injury, they’ve added Clark Terry’s name to the main credits on this version.

Hayes was, by far, the best British jazz saxophonist of his day. Now largely forgotten, unfortunately. But this really is very good. He deserves better.

#NowPlaying
#Vinyl
#TubbyHayes
#TheNewYorkSessions
#Jazz
#ClarkTerry
#Music

George Formby - Souvenir

George Formby was once the biggest name in UK entertainment. People couldn’t get enough of his cheeky double-entendre laden, thirties hot jazz-influenced songs, interspersed with banjolele axe-wielding, and sung in his Wigan accent. They were so well known they were seemingly woven into the fabric of society when I was growing up. I’ve been a fan since I had a Formby re-awakening in the 00’s.

His use of words is skilful and clever, despite the songs being of an age, and being frequently filthy. The Window Cleaner was banned by the BBC.

Formby essentially gave up his career at its peak to join ENSA, the military wing of the entertainment industry, so that he could help fight fascism. He would encourage the enlisted men to take up the seats at the front reserved for the officers and their wives.

In 1946, he and his wife/manager Beryl were given a ticker-tape welcome to South Africa. George then refused to play for segregated audiences and (shock, horror!) hugged a black child. The Prime Minster of South Africa, D.F. Malan, phoned Beryl to complain and was told to piss off. They were deported.

He was a good ‘un.

#NowPlaying
#Vinyl
#GeorgeFormby
#Souvenir
#Music

Don Cherry - Don Cherry (Brown Rice)

I didn’t realise until this morning, when I sat down and played this album, that it’s not called Brown Rice. It was called Brown Rice when it was first released in 1975, but re-named for its 1977 release to Don Cherry (the issue I own). I wonder why. It’ll always be Brown Rice to me. (Say Brown Rice one more time, motherfucker–I double-dare you!)

I imagine there was some marketing department meeting at the record label where they decided that the thing holding back sales of the album, where avant-garde jazz trumpet squawks over the top of a droning mash-up of Indian, Arabic and African rhythms, was the too-arty painting on the sleeve and a too-healthfood shop name.

The gatefold sleeve has lots of information about the tune Brown Rice: a transcription of Cherry’s solo, a stereo mix diagram, a graphic score–and both a biography of Cherry and a rather florid description of the album written by Stanley Crouch–none of which are very useful.

#NowPlaying
#Vinyl
#DonCherry
#BrownRice
#Jazz
#Music

Stevie Wonder -  Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants

One of the best things about being vegan is hearing the stupid arguments people come up with, thinking they’re gold-plated gotchas: But but what will we do with all the animals? But but where do you get your protein? But but crop deaths, but but bees, but but almonds, but but avocados.

One of the most entertaining is the but but plants feel pain argument. OK. Let’s get a puppy and a carrot and you can chop the head off one of them, Richard. You choose.

Part of the reason for the propagation (pun definitely intended) of this argument was the book The Secret Life of Plants by Peter Tomkins and Christopher Bird. So full of half-baked ideas and bogus science is it that it’ll likely be US government policy soon. It was, however, made into a very watchable film, scored by Stevie Wonder, who – being blind - wrote his music according to how each scene was described to him.

It was his first proper album since his meisterwerk Songs In The Key of Life, three years earlier, so expectations were high and the record company wallet was open. It was a double album with a convoluted, triple-gatefold, braille embossed and floral-scented sleeve, at least at first. Musically, the album was generally considered, erm…not quite as good.

But listen, this is an album full of experimental synthesizer sounds, atmospheric instrumental works, sound effects, and the occasional lovely soul song. It’s a truly beautiful album, absolutely years ahead of its time. If you don’t believe me, give Come Back As A Flower, which is as fine a tune as was ever committed to vinyl, or the proto-house of Race Babbling a go. It just didn’t contain another Isn’t She Lovely, that’s all. And that’s OK.

Rather ironically, Stevie Wonder’s now a vegan. Right on, Stevie.

#NowPlaying
#Vinyl
#StevieWonder
#JourneyThroughTheSecretLifeOfPlants
#Soul
#Vegan
#Music

Charles Mingus - The Clown

When I was about 12, there was a record called Making Bacon by the The Pork Dukes. It was a kind of rude-comedy-punk tune, with the activity in the title being a euphemism for sexual intercourse. Me and my mate Paul used to like it. We were 12, like.

That song has lodged in my head since and I sing the chorus every time making bacon, or facon, as was later the case, came up.

Fast forward to about five years ago, and I met up again with Paul, who now lives in Fremantle. Turns out that he too sings The Pork Dukes every time he makes bacon.

I mention this because today I will be making facon. I do this every couple of months, so that I always have some in the freezer. One of the key ingredients is Liquid Smoke. This seems to have been dropped from all the supermarkets since I bought my last bottle, so I had to schlep across town to a specialist Mexican shop to get some.

Whilst I was over that side of town I did some trail running in the hills for the first time in ages, and was reminded of how difficult it can be, when you don’t do it often enough.

It did give me the opportunity to hobble into Big Star Records, a shop I haven’t been to in years, where I picked up this.

It’s fantastic.

Its title track does remind me of the funniest joke ever, so always makes me smile.

#NowPlaying
#Vinyl
#CharlesMingus
#TheClown
#Jazz
#Music

George Benson - Breezin'

Let’s get this straight: George Benson was one of the best guitarists of his age. Good enough to play with Miles Davis. Fuck, his guitar playing is good.

It’s worth reminding people of this, because Benson gets remembered for his career as a smooth mom-soul vocalist.

Although there’s nothing wrong with either aspect of his career, I think you do have to view the two as distinct.

This album was, apparently, where everyone (and by everyone, I mean producer, Tommy Lipuma) discovered he had a voice, hence the inclusion of This Masquerade. So, Breezin’ marks the transition between Benson the guitarist and Benson the vocalist who also plays guitar. And also, one would imagine, between Benson the doing OK financially and Benson the doing very nicely, thank you very much.

#NowPlaying
#Vinyl
#GeorgeBenson
#Breezin’
#Jazz
#Music

John Spithead

2025-08-19 00:14:18

23!

Miles Davis - Miles In The Sky

This was Davis’s first dip of his toes into what would come to be known as 'fusion'. Shit was going to get very real, very soon.

It feels incredible that this was recorded when I was two. It sounds so very now.

It's interesting that two players on this album, Herbie Hancock and George Benson went on to have massive popular success outside/alongside their jazz careers.

Worth mentioning that drummer, Tony Williams, was 23 years old when this was recorded. Twenty three. Fuck.

#NowPlaying
#Vinyl
#MilesDavis
#MilesInTheSky
#Jazz
#Music

Charles Mingus - Cumbia & Jazz Fusion

The first time I ran a marathon, I did everything wrong. Of course. Everybody does.

I went out too fast, smashing through the first 10k, largely to overcome the massive panic attack I was having. I completely underestimated the amount of nutrition I would need and didn’t start taking on fuel until I was hungry, which is way too late.

Come the 30k mark I was cooked. My glycogen levels were in my boots, I could hardly put one foot in front of the other. I was, as they say, ‘bonking’. If you’ve never experienced this, it’s hard to describe just how fucking awful you feel. I had taken my headphones with me, so decided to play myself the list of pick-me-up music I had made for just this occasion.

Somehow, Charles Mingus’s Cumbia & Jazz Fusion had found its way on to the list. It’s nearly 28 minutes long. It wasn’t what I needed at all. What I should have done was get my phone out and flip forward, but my brain had lost all sensible decision-making capacity, so I struggled through. It was a long 28 minutes.

I haven’t felt able to listen to it again until this morning. I still find Cumbia & Jazz Fusion a bit re-traumatising, to be honest. However, Music for “Todo Modo” is great.

This was written as a film soundtrack, but was left on the cutting room floor. The sleeve notes gloss over this and don’t mention that it was described as a “dump” of previously discarded material, preferring to say it was because of the director’s deadline problems.

I’ve run quite a few marathons and ultra-marathons since, and don’t even bother taking my headphones with me. I just make sure I have a plan and try to stick to it. If it still all goes to shit, which it occasionally does - because sometimes, man, it just ain’t your day - I suck it up and try to make the best of it. There’s probably a lesson for life there.

#NowPlaying
#Vinyl
#CharlesMingus
#CumbiaandJazzFusion
#MarathonRunning
#Jazz
#Cumbia
#Music

Kassa Overall - Cream

I’m not an expert on hip-hop. Apart from being very into the early DefJam stuff when it came out, it’s never been in the centre of my field of vision. I’m more likely to know the tunes sampled in hip-hop tunes than the actual songs themselves.

On this, his new album, Kassa Overall covers eight hip-hop tunes, seven of which I know nothing about and one I’m only vaguely familiar with. I don’t think this makes me the intended audience for this record. It means I get to hear it without the novelty of knowing the original.

This threw up a bit of a weird one: I have no prior knowledge of Big Poppa by The Notorious B.I.G., which gets a delicious bossa nova treatment on this album. However, I know the sample, Between The Sheets by The Isley Brothers, that was used in it really well because I bought the 12” when it came out, so, to me, it sounds like a jazz version of that. I wonder how many other old duffers are getting into this in such an arse-about-face way.

The tunes stand up as decent jazz workouts, with Overall’s unique, thoughtful and clever drumming front and centre. According to the sleeve notes, these were all one-take recordings. I look forward to hearing the originals in the wild one day and recognising them from this record.

#NowPlaying
#Vinyl
#KassaOverall
#Cream
#HipHop
#Jazz
#Music

The Miles Davis Quintet - 'Round About Midnight

When I was growing up, working class people would often have a sing-song. In pubs, social clubs, on coach trips...anywhere where people came together to socialise. You don’t see that any more. I guess it was already a remnant of a bygone age when I was a kid. Nowadays, pubs just seem to have some cunt in the corner with an amplified acoustic guitar singing Wonderwall, whilst people look at their phones. If I was on a long coach trip and I tried to get everyone to sing The Lambeth Walk (“Oi!”) with me, they’d put me off at the next stop and call mental health services.

I say this, because Bye Bye Blackbird, was one of the songs that would get sung on such occasions, because everyone knew at least some of the words, and hearing Davis’s ‘first great quintet’, including of course John Coltrane, play this has brought back some memories and made me realise that this kind of social interaction is now all but lost – apart, I suppose, from football matches and churches (Do they still sing in churches or do they have some cunt in the corner with a guitar singing Wondergod?)

The part of the activity which was important, I think, is that everyone did it. It didn't matter if you were young or old, a decent singer or not - the sum was greater than the parts. In fact, if you'd started displaying Mariah Carey-style melisma, you'd have faced the scorn of your peers after a while. It was good-old communist fun.

#NowPlaying
#Vinyl
#MilesDavis
#RoundAboutMidnight
#JohnColtrane
#Jazz
#Music