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I have always loved all sorts of music and noticed that passion seems to grab some people from a young age whilst completely missing others. When we were young, our family shared a gramophone amongst six of us. It served as a communal musical watering hole where all our collective purchases of 45s and long-playing albums were kept together. I think of this today with kids on ipods and the mandatory use of socially isolating headphones and DVD players in bedrooms.
My older brother Peter’s musical taste ranged and changed from Cliff Richard and Rolf Harris singles to Vanilla Fudge’s ‘You keep me hanging on’ and the Zombies ‘She’s not there’, I occasionally listened, (under his tuition) to my dad’s choice of classical records and grew to love Gershwin’s ‘Rhapsody in Blue’, Rachmaninoff’s piano concerto No.2 and Ravel’s ‘Bolero’. My first ever record was ‘Needles and Pins’ by the Searchers. The strangest inclusion in our record collection was ‘House of the Rising Sun’ by the Animals because it was bought by our dad. He had watched a television talent show and this song had won and had made a great impression on him.
I was five when the Beatles released ‘Love Me Do’ in 1962. Growing up with them on the television, at the cinema or buying all their records. two or three times over in every format possible means they are number one to me. Their catalogue is incomparable as any hopeless 3-chord strumming guitar playing amateur like myself will testify.
Two years ago, my wife and I went to see Bob Dylan at the Hammersmith Apollo in London. As millions of others, we are devoted fans of pre-electric bob and we held our breath to recapture an experience something special. It didn’t materialise and it’s not his fault either because our memory of the Bob Dlyan that we went to see, frozen in time, is no more. The few classics he did play such as ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ and ‘A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall’, he mutilated beyond recognition on purpose. He has always been thus and that’s why still at 70 he remains the enigma and icon he is. He didn’t say one word to the adoring audience, left with no encore. He doesn’t want to talk and he doesn’t have to talk. We couldn’t wait for it to end. The music was so loud, I had my fingers in my ears for most of his slot. Mark Knoffler supported him and at least he said something even if it was self-indulgent and forgetable. On leaving, I listened to ‘fans’ vent their disappointment. Someone called him a c**t!
I have always loved the simplicity of Paul Simon’s songs and like the Beatles, they’re not defined by a certain few commercially successful hits reaching No. 1, the whole catalogue is important. Art Garfunkel’s voice is beautiful in this song. It is as flawless as his forehead!
The progressive rock music of Pink Floyd, the Moody Blues, Genesis, Emerson, Lake and Palmer etc was not a favourite genre of mine due to it being owned,(in my mind) by the older boys. I did listen to ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ and appreciated it but I was born too late to be the right age. Luckily that’s not the case when Monty Python appeared. Isn’t it strange after all these years, being a Beatle fan, I still wrongly remain ignorant and ambivalent to the Stones. My son Jack has beaten me to it there, recently being in the front row at Glastonbury and experienced what all the fuss was about. My other son Harry made his way to the front at the Isle of Wight festival to catch Paul McCartney. I’m increasingly no longer in the audience, but in one way, perhaps I am!!
In the unmissable oscar winning documentary, Searching for Sugarman, Sugar tells us that in the 70s every south african had three albums in their record collection. ‘Bridge over Troubled Waters’, ‘Sgt Peppers’ and ‘Cold Fact’ by Rodriguez. My older brother Peter bought me ‘Sweet Baby James’ by James Taylor one Christmas, saying everybody had it at college, whereas ten years later at the end of the 70s, for me, everybody seemed to have ‘Rumours’ and to be continually playing it!
A Monkey in Manhattan 