Belated Birthday Boy

I am grateful to Charity Chic for alerting me to the fact that the notorious Lusitanian-Caledonian contrarian, George, celebrated a birthday with a five on the end of it yesterday.

The choice of today's artists is a sort of cryptic tribute to the young lad. That's right, folks, it's Bitty Ford Rumba Time!

"Love On My Brain" - Jim Ford

"Walk Away From Love" - Bitty McLean

"Caramelos" - Rabbit Rumba

Take This To The Banks Too

Worn down by Gram's relentless moaning, I am giving in. Here is a clip of Shalamar.

To accompany it, here are a couple of songs about banks - the evil, exploitative sort, not the morally neutral ones where there is a tendency for dramatic things to happen. 'Offshore Banking Business' hasn't aged at all, more's the pity.

"Offshore Banking Business" - The Members

"The Jolly Banker" - Woody Guthrie

Take That To The Banks

Not the evil, exploitative sort of banks, but the morally neutral ones where there is a tendency for dramatic things to happen.

"The Banks Of The Leopold Canal" - The Deep Dark Woods

"The Banks Of Sicily" - Bert Jansch

"The Banks Of Sweet Primroses" - Shirley & Dolly Collins

Double Desert Delight

From Menaka in Mali, on the edge of the Sahara Desert, comes the almost appropriately named Leila Gobi. The first track comes from her 2015 album, "Leila", and the second from "2017" - no idea when that came out, I'm afraid. Judging by all the squelchy noises it sounds like she started hanging out with the cool kids in Bamako between the two records, but there is no harm in that.

"Hari Nafa" - Leila Gobi

"Tibo Gadeina" - Leila Gobi

Here's some more distaff desert music.

Frontline Politics

I was thinking of doing a Valentine's Day Special today. I changed my mind when I remembered that my readers are all debonair, delightful and deeply desirable, and will therefore have much better things to be doing tonight than reading this old blog. So I decided just to do what I like.

Both of today's selections are taken from "Frontline presents Reggae Discomixes", a double CD compilation of 12" singles from the long lost Frontline label. For those of you younger than ancient, Frontline was a short-lived subsidiary of Virgin Records which was around for only a couple of years in the late 1970s but put out a lot of great stuff in that time.

These are two of the many highlights, with the first track from Poet & The Roots (a.k.a. Linton Kwesi Johnson, Dennis Bovell and chums) shining even more brightly than the others.

"Five Nights Of Bleeding/ Defence Dub" - Poet & The Roots

"Isaiah - First Prophet Of Old" - Big Youth

A Whole Lotta Holes

Mouths? Souls? Buckets? You can't rely on anything these days.

"Your Mouth's Got A Hole In It" - Piano Red

"My Soul's Got A Hole In It" - Howard Tate

"My Bucket's Got A Hole In It" - Hank Williams

I was unable to find an original clip of Bernard Cribbins' "Hole In The Ground", and "Hole In My Shoe" is ruled out on the grounds of good taste, so you're getting this instead.

Radie & Anne

One of my favourite recent albums is 'Between The Earth And Sky' by Dublin folkies Lankum. It's consistently good all the way through, but even so the tracks where Radie Peat takes the lead stand out. There is a sort of gnarly tone to her voice that reminds me for some reason of the great Anne Briggs, even though they don't really sound similar at all.

"What Will We Do When We Have No Money?" - Lankum

"Summer's In" - Anne Briggs

I had been tempted to pair Radie Peat with Dock Boggs purely so I could combine them in the title of this post, but a recent veiled criticism of my punning ability from one of our Scottish readers put me off the idea. However, old Dock does actually fit in quite well with the two women, so here he is in a supporting role.

Big On The Bosphorus

Some top quality Turkish pop from the 1970s for you today, courtesy of Kamuran Akkor (and some bloke going "Chiggily bom bom bom").

Who is Kamuran Akkor, you ask? Well, according to Google Translate's rendition of her Turkish Wikipedia page: "The classical  Turkish music commentator is Gonul Akkor's sister. He was born in Istanbul in 1947. Beginning in 1968, Sezen had a reputation around the country with his 45-year-old record, An Old Lie of Love, Kime Niver Kime Kismet, Kill You Waiting and Reyhan songs. In the following years, he started pop music classical Turkish music interpretation". I hope that helps clear things up.
  
"Dilo Dilo Yaylalar" - Kamuran Akkor

"Şimdi Şimdi" - Kamuran Akkor

To round things off today, here is Little Eva with her tribute to the traditional music of the region.

 

Four Songs About Bananas

Because we can.

"Lorna Banana" - Junior Byles

"Castro Eating Banana" - Mighty Sparrow

"Banana" - Joe Shirimani (featuring Rose Chabala)

"Please No Squeeza Da Banana" - Louis Prima