Following Wednesday's post featuring songs with 'left' in the title here are some 'right' songs. In an effort to create the illusion of coherence they include some vintage Nigerian highlife (see Monday's post).
That's all. Have a good weekend.
"Doing It Right" - The Go! Team
"Jump Right Out Of The Jukebox" - Onie Wheeler
"Right, Tight, And Out Of Sight" - Branding Iron
"Right Now Train" - Dewey Martin & Medicine Ball
"Nigeria Drive On The Right" - Bola Johnson
I have a Saturday morning routine. I set the alarm for 7.30am then make a strong coffee to make sure my brain is wide awake by 8.30am. That is when I join all the cool kids over at My Top Ten in our collective effort to work out the answer to Rol's fiendish Saturday Snapshots quiz.
Last Saturday Sir Rol very kindly allowed me to have a go at setting the quiz. It was a great honour and one that left me even more in awe than before of his ability to maintain the high quality week in week out.
My theme was songs with 'left' or 'right' in the title. There is no shortage of them so after selecting the ones for the quiz I had a load remaining. Rather than let them go to waste I decided to make a couple of posts out of some of them. Left songs today, Right songs on Friday.
"Two Left Shoes" - Left Cassette
"Third From The Left In The Top Row" - 2 Belgen
"Left-Handed Angel" - Courtney Marie Andrews
"That's All That's Left" - Z.Z. Hill
"The Girl I Left Behind" - Freddie McKay
Our left-sided videos will be introduced by Ms Dolly Parton.
Last Friday I went to the Tate Modern with my pal the noted polymath Mr Perfect (real name) to see a new exhibition of Nigerian art of the last century which opened earlier this month. Titled 'Nigerian Modernism', the exhibition runs until May next year and it definitely worth seeing if you have the chance.
My reviewing skills are slim to non-existent, being as I am very much in the "I don't know much about art but I know what I like" camp, so I will refer you instead to this Guardian article which includes an interview with the curator and this one on the BBC website with lots of photos of the exhibits.
My own photos of the exhibition are on Flickr for anyone who might be interested. Here are some of my favourite exhibits plus a small display of early highlife albums that was tucked away in one corner, presumably as a nod to the cultural revolution in Nigerian music that was happening in parallel with that in Nigerian art.
I went to two gigs in successive nights earlier this week and they were quite a contrast in terms of both venue and music.
On Tuesday I was at my regular haunt The Shacklewell Arms in Dalston for one of their free gigs. This one featured three bands: Great Silkie, marcel (no caps please we're belgian) and Bureau de Change.
I'm not sure any of them will live long in the memory to be honest but the pick of the bunch were probably Bureau de Change. They are a bit hackneyed but were shouty, energetic and quite fun. They also kindly make their music available on a 'name your own price' basis - click on the links on each band's name if you wish to explore further.
It was an excellent show. Al was in fine voice for a man of 80, with great backing from The Empty Pockets and special guest Peter White, the man whose nifty guitar licks enhanced "On The Border", "Time Passages" and many more back in the day. Al has written so many fantastic songs that he could never fit them all into one set but I was pleased to hear some favourite 'deep cuts' (or album tracks as we called them then).
Guided By Voices have their latest album coming out at the end of the month. It is called "Thick Rich and Delicious" and having been sent an advance copy by the excellent Jack at Tell All Your Friends PR I can assure you it is an absolute corker. You can pre-order a copy over at Bandcamp. Actually, delete 'can' and replace it with 'should'.
Robert Pollard had been the guiding light and only constant of Guided By Voices for 40 years now. During that time they have churned through almost as many members as The Fall, but they have had the same five man line-up now since 2016. Familiarity is clearly breeding whatever the opposite of contempt is as the recent run of albums is as good as anything in the back catalogue.
And it is a big old back catalogue too. "Thick Rich and Delicious" is the 42nd studio album released by Guided By Voices, with 13 of them in the 2010s alone. In addition Mr Pollard has released 23 albums under his own name, 16 as Circus Devils and over 20 others using different aliases and with various collaborators. He is so prolific that he will probably have issued another album by the time you finish this sentence.
Here is one of the two advance tracks from the new album and golden oldies from "Mirrored Aztec" and "Its Not Them, It Couldn't Be Them" (in 2020 and 2021 respectively).
"(You Can't Go Back To) Oxford Talawatha" - Guided By Voices
"To Keep An Area" - Guided By Voices
"High In The Rain" - Guided By Voices
One of the members of the current line-up is Bobby Bare Jr, who as some of you will know has had a pretty good career in his own right. While he's nowhere near as prolific as Mr Pollard he has been working even longer. Here he is way back in 1973 helping his dear old Dad to #2 in the country charts.
I don't often participate in the multi-blog phenomenon that is Monday's Long Song, but I recently acquired a piece of music that I thought would be a good way of testing the concept - possibly to destruction.
Junior Brother is a man whose voice was described by the woman from Manchester I found myself sitting next to at a recent live performance as "grating". I wouldn't agree but it is certainly wayward and lacking in some of the conventional virtues like hitting all the right notes.
For me that is part of JB's charm. But can that charm by maintained over nearly twenty minutes and can you the listener make it all the way through? That's the test today.
I strongly suspect that George will be the only person to even attempt the task so let's rephrase the question using his famous 2B scale - is this bobbins or bifter?
Sock it to 'em, JB.
"Junior Brother's Favourite" - Junior Brother
A brief follow-up to my post on Colombian music earlier this week (Part 7 of our El Dorado series). Here are a couple of songs that were on the long list for that post but were cut because they are cover versions. But they are too much fun to deprive you of them completely.
"Combate A Kung Fu" - Wganda Kenya
"Cumbia Del Pichamán" - Meridian Brothers
Watch out for some bonus Biddu in the first video (or viddu).
That is a cleverer title than I suspect you are going to give it credit for. And that's a badly constructed sentence, as English teachers out there might notice. Anyway...
Charlie Chaplin the comic actor and director seems to be one of those Marmite performers. People either love him or hate him.
There is no such division of opinion about the reggae DJ Charlie Chaplin (Richard Bennett to his Mum), although admittedly that may be because many people have never heard of him. Hopefully these two tracks from 1982 and 1983 respectively will encourage you to join the pro-Chaplin 2 camp.
Chaplin 2 was fairly successful in the 1980s in Jamaica and is still about although according to Discogs he hasn't released any new material since 2006. When I looked for him on Bandcamp I found a single from 2016 released by Operation Sound System with Charlie Chaplin credited on vocals, but it turned out to be a sample of Chaplin 1 from the film in the title.
The credits on "Dictator" are pretty confusing all round. I assume Razzle and Sasquatch are not related to the saucy magazine and hairy mythical creature with whom they respectively share their names.
"Jamaican Collie" - Charlie Chaplin
"Unity Is Strength" - Charlie Chaplin (with Don Carlos)
"Dictator" - Charlie Chaplin, Razzle, Sasquatch
Chaplin 1 also turned his hand to music, writing a lot of his own film scores. One instrumental theme from his 1936 film "Modern Times" had some lyrics added in the early 1950s and became a standard. Chaplin 2 hasn't done a MRV of it, which seems a missed opportunity, but he isn't averse to adapting an old Peter Tosh tune.
Some 1980s Tamil film music for you today. Not that old chestnut, I hear you say. I'm afraid so.
I was rooting around in the bargain bins of a local second-hand record shop recently when I found a copy of "Ilectro!: Euphoric Electronics and Robotic Funk by Maestro Ilaiyaraaja", released on the always interesting Finders Keepers label in 2013. The cover alone was enough to persuade me to hand over the money.
Ilaiyaraaja is still going strong at 82 and earlier this year became to first Asian film composer to have a symphony performed in London (with the Royal Philharmonic). Very impressive and a far cry from his 80s days.
But we're here to dance. Let's gather together the cast of thousands and get the show started.
"Unithaan" - Ilaiyaraaja
"Aththi Marakkili" - Ilaiyaraaja
Ilaiyaraaja had perhaps the biggest hit of his illustrious career in 1991 with his music for the film "Thalapathi". The soundtrack was included in The Guardian's list of "1000 Albums to Hear Before You Die" and the song "Rakkamma Kaiya Thattu" was placed fourth in a BBC World Service poll of "World Top Ten Popular Songs of All-time" (although with "Believe" by Cher at #8 I'm not sure how much faith to place on this list).
Here are the hits.
Last Wednesday night found me and Mr F in the tiny upstairs room of the Betsey Trotwood public house in London's fashionable Clerkenwell for what turned out to be an excellent double bill. Famed music journalist and editor Allan Jones was sitting just a couple of feet from us and he seemed to enjoy himself so that is good enough for me.
The headliners were Slow Motion Cowboys. I have their 2013 album "Buzzard Songs" and their latest, "Wolf Of St. Elmo" has been very well reviewed so I was expecting them to be good and I wasn't disappointed. They are touring the UK until the weekend and if they are playing near you I would recommend popping along.
A special shout out to guitarist Barstool Brown for having what may be one of the greatest country names of all time.
I knew nothing about support act Legends Of Country but they were great fun. The Legends are essentially Jof Owen (ex The Boy Least Likely To) and assorted chums gone country. Some of the lyrics are a little tongue in cheek but you can tell its true love.
They have released two albums to date, "Anything But Country" (2022) and "Talk About Country" (2015). When I bought the most recent album after the show Jof very kindly added the other one for free - an act of generosity that as he noted may explain why he hasn't made a fortune yet. I'm enjoying them both.
Jof mentioned that they don't play live very often and I'm not sure there is a fixed line-up, but on Wednesday it included all three members of Girl Ray, who as regular readers will know are one of my favourite bands of recent years. It turns out that Sophie from the band played bass on "Anything But Country" and she and Iris provided backing vocals on a late era The Boy Least Likely To single.
As already mentioned here and elsewhere the Danny Thompson left us last week. Danny was a man of both quality and quantity. Discogs lists over 750 credits - and that isn't all of them - and he is possibly on more records in my collection than any other musician. He shines on every one.
I was lucky enough to see Danny live in various combinations over the years. The standouts include a duo of him and Richard 'No Relation' Thompson at Cropredy some time back in the Days of the Ancients and what turned out to be Pentangle's last ever gig (at the Royal Festival Hall in 2011).
Swiss Adam has written a very nice tribute over at Bagging Area - he is much more eloquent than what I is - in which he highlights Danny's work with Pentangle, Nick Drake and John Martyn. If you wade through to the end of my post on the Incredible String Band last week you'll find Danny there as well.
I have avoided all those artists in the selection below. These tracks are all taken from records I happen to have lying around and hopefully give you some idea of Danny's range and quality. They are in chronological order, from 1969 to 2012. I have included a track from "Industry" (2003), an album jointly credited to Richard and Danny,
I couldn't find any decent quality clips of the 2011 Pentangle concert but have shared a performance of "I've Got A Feeling" from three years earlier on 'Later'. Danny lets loose at about the two minute mark. The second clip is him and Richard in 1996, also on 'Later', and we finish in the same year with Kathy Mattea joining him and his old mucker at the Transatlantic Sessions.
RIP Mr Thompson. Thanks for everything.
"Goodbye To Monday Night" - Michael Chapman
"City's Cry" - Shelagh McDonald
"Interstellar Soul" - T. Rex
"China Doll" - Julian Cope
"King Strut" - Peter Blegvad
"One String Violin" - Heidi Berry
"Jojoh Yalah Jo" - S.E. Rogie
"Drifting Through The Days" - Richard Thompson & Danny Thompson
"Miracle" - Baaba Maal
"Still England" - Viv Albertine
Last Saturday afternoon I was at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London's fashionable South Bank for a celebration of the Incredible String Band. I have been a massive fan of the band for over 40 years so I wasn't going to miss the party.
As you can see from the photo there were a lot of celebrants. I counted 18 in total over the course of the concert. Most were from the current generation of what sometimes get called 'freak folk'. I recognised some like Milkweed and Junior Brother but there were no introductions so I'm still none the wiser as to who many of them were.
However, as good as they were, most of us were there for Mike Heron. I have been lucky enough to see him many times over the years, both solo and in a couple of String Band reunions way back around the turn of the century, but he is in his eighties now and has had health issues so there are unlikely to be many more chances.
Mike joined the gang for the last stretch of the show. He was pretty frail physically and initially vocally, but being on stage doing what he loves with a room full of people who love him had a rejuvenating effect on his voice. By the time he led the ensemble in a moving rendition of "Air" he was sounding great. I'm sure I wasn't the only old fart who was slightly damp around the eyes when that ended.
Here are the originals of "Air" and "God Dog" plus something by Mary Hampton from her 2011 album "Folly" (available on Bandcamp with a revised running order). I have also added "First Girl I Loved", one of my favourite records of all time. It features on double bass the great Danny Thompson who sadly left us a few days ago. I will try to do a proper tribute to Mr Thompson next week; consider this a down payment.
The videos feature some of the other fine (freak) folks who were on the bill, plus of course the golden boys (and girls) themselves.
"Lullaby For The Beleaguered" - Mary Hampton
"God Dog" - Shirley & Dolly Collins
"Air" - The Incredible String Band
"First Girl I Loved" - The Incredible String Band
Yesterday I visited Mannakin Hall near Grantham with the King of Cool himself, Mr John Medd. Why? To quote Gob Geldof, "what reason do you need?".
Here are some of the residents, including a group apparently attempting to recreate Manet's 'Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe' (but not very successfully) There are loads more photos over on Flickr if you are so inclined.
I will be taking no further questions.
The back room of the Shacklewell Arms in London's trendy Dalston has become a bit of a regular haunt of mine in recent years. With a capacity of about 200 if you all breathe in and squeeze together, it hosts more than its fair share of great gigs. Even better, quite a number of them are free thanks to the generosity of assorted labels and PR outfits.
Mr F and I toddled along to one such gig last Tuesday. Yalla Miku are a Geneva based group that define their sound as: "blending post-kraut grooves, mutant folklore and electronic trance, and sparking dialogue between traditions from the Horn of Africa and the most unrestrained experiments of Geneva’s underground". So now you know.
I enjoyed their debut album very much when it came out in 2023 so was keen to hear them live. I was not disappointed. The line-up has changed a lot since the debut - four out, two in - so the set mainly consisted of songs from their new album. It is due out in November and available for pre-order on Bandcamp now. Judging by the live performance it should be another cracking record.
As well as playing guitar and banjo in the band Cyril Yeterian is also the founder of the Les Disques Bongo Joe label which has just celebrated its 10th anniversary. It has released some amazing records - a mixture of new artists, reissues and compilations from all over the world - many of which have featured here previously. So it was a privilege to chat to him briefly after the gig and thank him for all the pleasure he has brought me over the last decade.
Both the Yalla Wiku tracks below are from the first album and feature the previous line-up. If you want a sneak preview of Mark 2 Bandcamp is sharing the first single from the new album and you can listen to their BBC Radio 6 session for a Bongo Joe special edition of Cerys Matthews' show a couple of days before the gig. The band appear just after two hours in but the whole programme is worth a listen.
All the other acts featured today were or are on the Bongo Joe roster, or in the case of Nourdine Staifi feature on a compilation. If you haven't already bookmarked the Bongo Joe Bandcamp page in preparation for next Bandcamp Friday I suggest you do so.
"Asmazate" - Yalla Miku
"Pingpxng" - Yin Yin
"Goultili Bye Bye" - Nordine Staifi
"Layung" - Nusantara Beat
After a few weeks break we are back on the road, resuming our quest for El Dorado. We have made our way from the wide expanses of Canada to the narrowest country in the world (relative to its length). Welcome to long, skinny Chile.
When covering the music of Chile you really have to start with Vic and Vi - Victor Jara and Violeta Parra. Victor is probably the better known internationally, not least for the manner of his death, but Violeta was the real pioneer. She was pretty much single-handedly responsible for starting the Nueva Canción Chilena movement, a revival of traditional music that became linked to progressive political groups and inspired similar movements elsewhere in Latin America.
Violeta's best known song is "Gracias A La Vida", one of most covered Latin American songs ever and one that has a place in the Latin Grammy Hall of Fame. This is the original from 1966. Sadly Violeta's own life was not as happy as the song suggests and she killed herself the following year.
Victor was one of Violeta's many proteges and an early recruit to the Nueva Canción Chilena movement. After starting his recording career covering traditional songs his music became increasing political, notably with the release in 1969 of "Preguntas Por Puerto Montt", about police violence in the town of that name. He was one of the many thousands associated with the Allende government to be killed by Pinochet's thugs in Estadio Chile this month in 1973.
That is a heavy opening to a feature that I normally try to keep light and fluffy but it was hard to avoid. Now let's reset the tone. Fluffiness ahoy!
In parallel with the Nueva Canción movement Chile also had a vibrant psychedelic scene in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Among the pioneers were the MacIver brothers from Valparaiso, whose band Los Mac's led the way with the release of the album "Kaleidoscope Men" in 1967. I've chosen the jaunty opening number.
Much less jaunty were Aguaturbia, whose self-titled debut album in 1970 presaged the arrival of heavy rock in Chile and caused a bit of a stir due to the naughty nude people on the cover. Personally I prefer their second album - the innovatively titled "Volumen 2" - from which today's selection comes. Please take time to admire the feisty vocals of Denise Corales and the guitar work of her husband Carlos.
We are going to leap forward a quarter of a century now to catch up with another female-fronted band, Elso Tumbay. They described their music as "medieval rock, a conversation between two goblins about a failed revolution". Those of us who prefer simpler labels might go for pop-prog or something like that. Look out for some fine fiddling on this track from their self-titled debut album released in 1997.
Next up we have Pascuala Ilabaca (or "the accordion-wielding Chilean songstress Pascuala Ilabaca" as Womex would have it). With her group Fauna she has been making jazz-tinged folk music since 2008 and since then has picked up a few awards and appeared at the likes of WOMAD. This is the title track from her 2010 album "Diablo Rojo Diablo Verde".
Chile has nearly 4000 miles of coastline and roughly 900 beaches, so it is perhaps no surprise that there is a surf rock scene. One of the current wave (pun intended) is The Chukukos. Originally from landlocked Santiago they are now based in even more landlocked Switzerland so quite where they picked up the bug I don't know. Anyway, this track is from their 2017 album "Deep Latin Surf Attack".
For the Mandatory American Reggae slot we have Sistemo Beat Andino from the heart of the Aconcagua valley in the foothills of the Andes. This dubby take on the local folk music comes from their 2022 album "Territorio Andino" and features a guest spot from the sensibly named Silly Tang. I assume he is the man who says "Irie" a grand total of two times, which hardly seems worthy of a credit to me.
"Gracias A La Vida" - Violeta Parra
"Preguntas Por Puerto Montt" - Victor Jara
"F.M. y Cia" - Los Mac's
"Waterfall" - Aguaturbia
"Yo No Vengo a Vender" - Elso Tumbay
"Diablo Rojo Diablo Verde" - Pascuala Ilabaca y Fauna
"La Venganza de Ramon Ramon" - The Chukukos
"El Himno De Los Locos" - Sistema Beat Andino (feat. Silly Tang)
I wanted to kick off the videos with a young lady who rather stole my heart when I first discovered her song "Danny Bastard" a few years ago. But the video has been "disabled for playback on other platforms" so you'll need to head over to YouTube to watch it. Trust me, it is worth the effort.
What appears at first to be frothy pop fun is actually deeply political. Just change 'Danny' to 'Donny' and you have a searing critique of the current US administration: "You think you are a master but you're only just a bastard". Does that make Betania López the new Violeta Parra? Probably not.
Now onto the videos proper. Take it away folks.
This is the second of two posts about the music that I picked up on my recent holiday in Bosnia & Herzegovina. The first post last week covered the modern stuff. For this one we are going traditional.
Sevdah (also known as sevdalinka) is a style of folk music seen as an integral part of Bosnian culture. It is typically slow and melancholic and has been compared with Portuguese fado; indeed, some linguists claim that sevdah and saudade come from the same root word. I have asked George to test the theory by playing today's selections to the goats and recording their response.
While in Mostar I picked up a 6 CD box set called 'Sevdah: 108 Orginalih Hitova'. Hopefully you don't need me to translate that for you. Most of the hitova seem to date from the 1950s and 1960s which I gather was a bit of a golden age.
I have picked a track each from three of the singers who feature most frequently: Zaim Imamović, Himzo Polovina and Beba Selimović. While originally hailing from Travnik, Mostar and Trebinje respectively, all three moved to the capital after the Second World War where they each started their careers performing on Radio Sarajevo, Bosnia's first radio station.
Himzo is just one of many artists to record "Emina", a setting of a poem by Aleksa Šantić, who had the dubious honour of giving his name to the street that formed part of the frontline during the war in Mostar in the 1990s. These days the end where the most severe fighting took place is occupied by newly built apartment blocks with fetching murals, but one ruined building is still standing - perhaps as a reminder.
I had an action-packed Saturday with a tenuous library link running through the day. It included a visit to the Rock 'n Roll Public Library (RRPL) exhibition, running at the Art Pavilion in Mile End Park in London until 18 September. It is worth popping in if you are in the area or if the mobile library rolls into your town at some point in the future.
The RRPL is an archive of stuff collected over the years by Mick Jones (The Clash one not the Foreigner one). There is some material relating to The Clash and Big Audio Dynamite but the bulk is general pop culture stuff. A lot of it is what might normally be described as tat but as it is in an exhibition I am required to refer to it as 'ephemera'.
It is really more of a curated car boot sale than a library, but to be fair the curator has done a great job. There is a replica of a 1960s sitting room, some themed exhibits and - where the curator presumably got a bit stumped - some colour coded sections, all of which draw you in.
Eagle-eyed viewers may have spotted a Jah Shaka flyer in one of the RRPL photos. I included that photo in a vain attempt to make this all seem vaguely coherent.
Onto the music. We will start with Louisa Mark's debut single from 1975, produced by Sir Lloyd, which is often credited as being the first lovers rock record. We follow it with a cut from the first volume of Jah Shaka's "Commandments of Dub" series in album, released in 1982.
In selecting a Mick Jones tune I went for this track from "London Calling" on the very flimsy grounds that the library in Dalston is next door to a Sainsburys. Mick's other band and Black Slate are in the videos.
"Caught Me In A Lie" - Louisa Mark
"Chapter One Verse Three" - Jah Shaka
"Lost In The Supermarket" - The Clash
It was only when leafing through the obituaries in the latest edition of Uncut at the weekend that I learned Keith Dobson left us back in July.
Keith first hit the scene as drummer with hippie collective Here & Now using the nom de plume Kif-Kif Le Batteur. Fortunately he packed that nonsense in after a while and started making proper music under his own name, most notably as the CEO of World Domination Enterprises, creators of "Asbestos Lead Asbestos" and other hits.
On reading the news I headed straight over to Bandcamp and picked up an expanded edition of their 1988 album "Let's Play Domination". It is a splendid racket as these samples demonstrate.
"Message For You People" - World Domination Enterprises
"Asbestos Lead Asbestos" - World Domination Enterprises
World Domination Enterprises are of course far from the only example of evil big business trying to persuade the kids to part with their pocket money. Let's name and shame a few of the other culprits. Watch out for DLT speaking German.
My recent holiday was spent in Bosnia and Herzegovina - primarily in Sarajevo and Mostar but with side trips to Jajce, Travnik and Blagaj.
I had a great time and would heartily recommend it as a destination to anyone who enjoys one or more of stunning scenery, history (recent and older), art (street and gallery), burek or beer.
Described (by myself admittedly) as "a dazzling mix of ancient and modern, of urban grit and rural charm", my holiday snaps are on Flickr. You probably won't want to wade through all of them so here is a small selection: a view of Mostar, the 16th century dervish house in Blagaj, and the bobsleigh track for the 1984 Winter Olympics that was part of the frontline during the siege of Sarajevo.
I'm back from my hols. I had a very good time and will be boring you all with the details later in the week. But first some unfinished business.
In one of my last posts before my break I mentioned that I would be popping along to the Clerkenwell Festival to see P.P. Arnold and The Rockingbirds do their thing. This attracted envious comments from a few of you so I thought I should report back.
Here is my detailed review: They were both great.
We have reached stop #5 on our American tour and its another biggie - Canada.
For my travel series I usually spend a lot of time carefully curating the playlist and then researching and drafting the liner notes of each post for the benefit of our esteemed audience. I haven't done that this time though, for two reasons. One is that I'm off on my holidays tomorrow and there is a lot to get done before I go. The other is that there was simply too much good Canadian music to choose from. It made the selection process for the previous post on Brazil seem straightforward by comparison.
In the end I just picked out some personal favourites. I have tried not to choose too many big names, so there is no Joni, Neil or Smiling Len for example. Not even any Carly Rae Jepsen, Loverboy or Bare Naked Ladies (some choices were easier than others). But I had to start with Gordon Lightfoot because he is Mr. Canada as far as I'm concerned.
I won't go through all the tracks individually but will note that a third of them are by immigrants to Canada, proving once again the wisdom of Blue Mink's words. Kiran Ahluwalia, MAR MVP Noel Ellis (son of Alton) and Drew Gonsalves of Kobo Town all arrived in Toronto as children from India, Jamaica and Trinidad respectively. Mr Jo Jo Bennett was already a musician when he also moved from Jamaica but The Fugitives were formed and performed in Canada.
Where the album the track comes from is on Bandcamp I have added a link in the artist's name. That covers half of them. For the rest you are on your own.
For the videos we start things off with the father of Canadian country music and his grandson after which things get a little more random.
That's it from me for now. Stay groovy, see you in a couple of weeks.
"Canadian Railroad Trilogy" - Gordon Lightfoot
"Anew Day" - Mary Margaret O'Hara
"Whatever It Takes" - Ron Sexsmith
"Chips - Chicken - Banana Split" - Jo Jo & The Fugitives
"Stand Up Straight And Tall" - Jackie Shane
"We Can't Be Lovers With These Guns On Each Other" - Rae Spoon
"Black Stations/White Stations" - Martha & The Muffins
"Mustt Musst" - Kiran Ahluwalia
"Can't Change the Colour of Your Eyes" - Skinny Dyck
"End Of The Day" - Doug Paisley
"To Hail Selassie" - Noel Ellis
The August Bank Holiday weekend has arrived, which here in London means the Notting Hill Carnival.
I won't be going to Carnival. I used to enjoy it in my youth but these days I can't be doing with all the crowds. Instead I will be spending Sunday afternoon at the smaller and more sedate Clerkenwell Festival (this year's headliners: P.P. Arnold and The Rockingbirds).
Wherever you are heading for your fun this weekend there is nothing like some soca to get you in the mood. Today's tracks come from one of Antigua's finest sons, the late Sir Rupert Philo (aka Mighty Swallow), a man who was clearly up for a party any time, any place, anywhere.
"Subway Jam" - Mighty Swallow
"Party In Space" - Mighty Swallow
And here is a little something for the Clerkenwell massive.
