With little effort, tapping into those talents that allow me to predict the future, I have been saying this was coming since I realized quite recently that Chuck Berry would be 91 in 2017 – note that Little Richard will be 85 in December. Sadly Chuck didn’t make it to that 91st birthday but his legacy runs […]
Losing Leonard Cohen at 82 and Leon Russell at 74 is tragic but 57 is just too young to leave. Pete Burns died suddenly of a heart attack on 23rd October after a life of brilliant eccentricity that in his own inimitable way he managed to manifest in a down to earth manner that made him just […]
Strange Fruit was written as a poem by Abel Meeropol in 1937 under the pseudonym Lewis Allan, named after his two still born children. After changing the title from “Bitter Fruit” and setting it to music, the song was performed in New York by Meeropol’s wife Laura Duncan as a Protest song against lynchings. An […]
Any independent record buyer from the early eighties would be aware of the Some Bizarre record label and the band The The. Andy Dog Johnson was the brother of Matt Johnson, The The’s only constant member. Andy Dog as he was known designed sleeves for the label and created the spikey artwork for several of […]
After all this death I’m just so relieved that one of my favourite artists is still alive – Robert Wyatt was 70 on January 28th. I could gladly post a different Robert Wyatt track every day and oddly his songs of dissent only make me happy. That is, I find them inspiring, it’s not like Elvis […]
One of the true timeless classics from the R’n’R era, Albatross reached No.1 in the British singles charts in 1968 but its inspiration came from another No.1 single, Santo and Jonny’s 1959 hit Sleep Walk. In turn Sleep Walk was inspired by Sigmund Romberg’s 1927 tune, Softly As The Morning Sunrise written for the operetta […]