Os Três Gigantes

Later in the week we will arrive at the fourth destination in our musical tour of the Americas and it is a big one - Brazil. Trying to sort that post out has been a big challenge simply because I have so much Brazilian music - well over 500 tracks just on my shuffle with many more on CDs and the hard drive.  

To help with the editing process I decided to take out three gents who are probably my favourite Brazilian artists, each of whom have featured on these pages many times over the years - the father of samba-rock, Jorge Ben, the king of samba-soul, Tim Maia, and the boss of them all Gilberto Gil. 

But having done that I had second thoughts. The reason they are my favourites and keep turning up here is because they are all bloody marvellous. Who am I to deprive you of more of their magnificence?

This is the compromise. A track from each of the Big Three today to warm you up for the proper Brazil post on Friday. The selected tracks are new to the blog even though the gents themselves are not.

"Cérebro Eletrônico" - Gilberto Gil

"A Banda Do Zé Pretinho" - Jorge Ben

"Do Leme Ao Pontal" - Tim Maia

And now a video apiece. Contrary to the titles at the start of the Jorge Ben video the song is "Taj Mahal" and it definitely wasn't ripped off by Rod Stewart. 

Seun Of His Father

Like many musicians with famous parents, Seun Kuti probably struggles to step out from their shadow. He is probably still best known as Fela's son. Unlike many of his peers, however, he makes excellent records and deserves to be admired in his own right.

Stylistically Seun hasn't fallen far from the tree, perhaps unsurprisingly as he inherited his Dad's old band Egypt 80 when Fela died in 1997 (he was 16 at the time). His sound has been getting a bit more diverse over time though and his latest album "Heavier Yet" features collaborations with the likes of Kamasi Washington, Sampa The Great and fellow nepo baby Damian Marley.

"Heavier Yet" and its predecessor "Black Times" can be found on Seun's Bandcamp page but his earlier albums cannot. So to help you plug the gap here is a track apiece from "From Africa With Fury: Rise" (2011) and "A Long Way To The Beginning" (2014).

Listeners of a delicate nature are warned that "IMF" contains multiple rude words. Suffice to say that according to Seun MF doesn't stand for Monetary Fund.

"The Good Leaf" - Seun Kuti & Egypt 80

"IMF (with M-1)" - Seun Kuti & Egypt 80

Originally this post was going to be called "Like Father, Like Seun" but I changed it to give me an excuse to include this video. Not that I really need an excuse of course.

Canterbury Tales

I treated myself to a day out in Canterbury earlier in the week and very nice it was too. A potter around the town, a stroll along the Stour. There was a cricket match on but I only made it as far as The Cricketers.

The cathedral was the highlight as always, it really is spectacular with a huge amount of history attached. The £20 entry fee might suggest that Jesus' line about the rich finding it harder than the poor to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven was a load of guff, but to be fair each ticket is valid for a year. When I left I gave mine to the first impoverished wretch I saw.

Many years ago, roughly midway between Chaucer and today, there used to be a scene in Canterbury. Here is a playlist featuring some selected scenesters. True to the spirit of the typical Scene output, it goes on way too long and some of the fiddlier bits could happily have been cut out completely.

"Dedicated To You But You Weren't Listening" - Soft Machine

"While Growing My Hair" - Egg

"And I Wish I Were Stoned" - Caravan

"May I?" - Kevin Ayers & The Whole Wide World

"O Caroline" - Matching Mole

"Inner Temple" - Gong

"Didn't Matter Anyway" - Hatfield & The North

"Octave Doctors" - Steve Hillage

Yama Jammer

I have been listening to Yama Warashi a fair bit recently and I thought you might like to as well.

Yama Warashi means mountain spirit in Japanese and it is the nom de plume of Yoshino Shigihara, a musician and illustrator who describes her sound as a mixture of free jazz and African music with a slice of electric psychedelia (and who am I to tell her otherwise). 

Although now based back in Japan most of Yoshino's records to date were made while living in the UK, first in Bristol and then London. In 2022 I was lucky enough to see her live in London supporting Bas Jan. Quite a line-up.

She seems to have a thing about the moon. Here is one track apiece from "Moon Zero", "Moon Egg" (both 2016), "Boiled Moon" (2018) and "Crispy Moon" (2022). You can find all of those albums and more on her Bandcamp site.

"Mycelium Roost" - Yama Warashi

"Moon Egg" - Yama Warashi

"Kofun No Uta" - Yama Warashi

"Makkuroi Mizu" - Yama Warashi

Yoshino's hardly the only musician with a thing about the moon. It is after all one of the lyrical staples of popular music as these examples show. The first is sublime, the others marginally less so. 

Single Song Sunday

For this edition of Single Song Sunday I've chosen a song that has been covered much less frequently than most of those that we have featured previously. Some of them had 100+ versions knocking about. For this one the good folks at Single Song Sunday have only been able to verify nine. Seven of those feature here, and I've found a couple of others for you.

The song in question is "Thin Line Between Love And Hate", written in 1971 by the Poindexter brothers, Richard and Robert (not Buster), and Robert's wife Jackie Members. The Poindexters were New York based writers and producers who had a licensing agreement with Atlantic. Jimi Hendrix was a backing musician on some of their early releases in the mid-1960s.

"Thin Line Between Love And Hate" was written specifically as a launch pad for the newly formed Persuaders. It succeeded admirably, making it all the way to #15 in the Billboard Hot 100 in 1971 and topping the R 'n B charts. For me it is still the pick of the bunch.

It was quickly covered twice the following year, one being by The Lost Generation (we will come to the other one later). Then there seems to have a bit of a lull until 1984 when The Pretenders' version rocketed to #49 in the UK and #83 in the US.

We then had to wait another decade for a sudden rash of covers in the mid-1990s - Annie Lennox in 1995 and Sly, Slick & Wicked (on a live album) and H-Town both in 1996. The latter two are relegated to the videos - one is decent, the other is not.

Then there was another decade long gap until the mysterious Donald McCollum popped up in 2008. The single came out on a German label called Sundae Soul that was active between 2006 and 2016. Quite a lot of the singles it released were reissues by American artists like Barbara Lewis, so whether Donald's original recording dates from 2008 I have no idea.

Which brings us back to the other cover version from 1972, and probably my favourite apart from the original. Filling the MRV quota this time out we are delighted to present the late great B.B. Seaton. There is some extra MRV in the videos for you fanatics.

"Thin Line Between Love And Hate" - The Persuaders

"Thin Line Between Love And Hate" - The Lost Generation

"Thin Line Between Love And Hate" - The Pretenders

"Thin Line Between Love And Hate" - Annie Lennox

"Thin Line Between Love And Hate" - Donald McCollum

"Thin Line Between Love And Hate" - B.B. Seaton

Outsiders Are In!

Earlier in the week I was at London's fashionable Wallace Collection for a panel discussion and a peek at the current Grayson Perry exhibition.

The eminent art guru C has already reviewed the exhibition over at her place, and if it had not been for that review I would not have found out about the panel discussion. So many thanks C.

The discussion was titled 'Visions and Voices: Madge Gill and Outsider Art'. I am a big fan of the East London artist Madge Gill, as is Mr Perry it seems as he has included a few of her works in his exhibition, and that was the main attraction for me. 

After an unpromising introduction by the moderator that was full of art jargon like 'intersectional' and 'liminal' it turned into an interesting chat. As well as talking about Madge Gill's life and work - both extraordinary - there was a discussion about whether there is such a thing as 'outsider art'.

The general view of the panel was that it is an outdated and unhelpful term. As one of the panellists said, the artists who get labelled that way are all genuinely unique so trying to pigeonhole them and define them as one single group makes no sense. There is also a distinct whiff of 'not one of us' about it on the part of the establishment.

It reminded me of the dreadful phrase 'world music' which fortunately seems to have fallen out of favour. The idea that all the amazing and varied music made outside Europe and North America could be bundled together and treated as one genre always seemed misguided and - even if well-intended - slightly racist to me.

Enough of my right on rantings. Here are some outsiders and some art.

"The Outsider" - Shooter Jennings

"Outsiders (Remix)" - The Strange Parcels

"Do You Feel Alright" - The Outsiders

"Sealand" - Art Brut

"Public Art" - The Reds, Pinks & Purples

"Exit For The Artist Exists" - The Ugly Creatures

Ernie's Eccentric Omnibus

The Numero Group has been running a series called 'Eccentric Soul' for the best part of 25 years now. Focused firmly on the more obscure soul labels and artists there have been over 40 releases, with the latest due out in a few weeks.

Back in 2012 they decided to mark the tenth year of the series with a jumbo 88 track compilation. They named it "Eccentric Soul: Omnibus". Here are just three of the many highlights.

"When I Left You" - Black Soul Express

"Girl You Better Change" - Sag War Fare

"Rainy Days And Mondays" - The Energettics

You may recognise the final song. Here is the original.