The Early Years Part 2

Here are five more of the songs that I first posted back in the early days of 27 Leggies, for those of you who missed them first time round (i.e. everyone).

Today's selection were all recorded in the period 1967 - 72. We have some garage/beat from Massachusetts and the Netherlands, some funky sounds from Virginia and Nigeria, and some kick-ass hippy nonsense from Notting Hill.

"Romeo And Juliet" - Michael & the Messengers (1967)

"Lady Sex" - Eddy Dyan & The Saints (1970)

"Peacock" - Little Wink & Eddie's 25th Century Band (1972)

"James Brown Ride On" - Orlando Julius & The Afro Sounders (1970)

"Jesus, Buddha, Moses, Gauranga" - Quintessence (1970)

The Quintessence track is not the studio version from their self-titled album but a greatly superior live version released by Island on the "Bumpers" sampler. Here is more of the lads in action.

The Early Years Part 1

As I think I mentioned at the time, 27 Leggies celebrated its second birthday earlier this month. Back in the early days, before coming to the attention of discerning readers like yourselves, we were lucky to get more than a handful of visitors a week. Which meant that a lot of stuff was posted but heard by hardly anyone. So I thought over the next few posts I would bring back some of the tracks I originally posted in the first few months of the blog to bring them to the bigger audience they deserve.

We start today with the song that gave 27 Leggies its name. We follow it up with some prog and Japanese soft-rock from the 1970s, some Belgian new wave from the early 1980s, and a truly masterly cover version by the late, great Joe Dolan.

"They'm" - Rainbow Ffolly (1968)

"Ship" - Gnidrolog (1972)

"Natsu Nandesu" - Happy End (1971)

"Gorilla Dans De Samba" - Aroma Di Amore (1983)

"Psycho Killer" - Joe Dolan (2005)

Here is some more from Joe, a man still so popular they are having to reinforce his statue in Mullingar because people keep climbing up to be with him. Sing along now. And watch out for some knicker-flinging in the second clip.

Tiken All The Boxes

You are all very tolerant of my inane ramblings, and I would not want to push that tolerance to the limits. But in the unlikely event you can stomach any more, my blethering can now be found in a one-off feature over at Pop Goes The Radio, an excellent blog that whizzes between London and Galway with alarming speed.

Josh, who masterminds Pop Goes The Radio, has very kindly - if rather misleadingly - described 27 Leggies as "a wonderful education in, for want of a better description, World Music". When I read that this morning I immediately shelved the in-depth comparison of the songwriting skills of Gilbert O'Sullivan and Neil Sedaka that I had originally planned for today, and desperately looked around for something more in keeping with Josh's hyperbole.

Which is why you are getting some top-notch reggae from Cote d'Ivoire, courtesy of Tiken Jah Fakoly. Here are a couple of tracks each from his albums Coup De Gueule (2004) and African Revolution (2010).

"Kuma" - Tiken Jah Fakoly (2004)

"Ou Veux-Tu Que J'Aille" - Tiken Jah Fakoly (2004)

"Laisse-Moi M'Exprimer" - Tiken Jah Fakoly (2010)

"Je Ne Veux Pas Ton Pouvoir" - Tiken Jah Fakoly (2010)

Mr Fakoly is apparently banned from Senegal after criticising the President while performing there in 2007. Of course, he is by no means the only reggae singer to have spoken out against injustice. Here is another example.



By the way, for those of you who are interested, I favour Gilbert lyrically but Neil for his mastery of melody. Controversial views, I know, but - like Pluto Shervington and Tiken Jah Fakoly - sometimes you just have to speak out.

New Desert Blues

Here is a little something for fans of Tinariwen, Etram Finatawa, Mariem Hassan and other Saharan superstars. Atri N'Assouf - which means "The Star of the Desert" - is a newish group from Niger that released its first album, "Akal", last year. And very good it is too, as these tracks will demonstrate.

"Talamt" - Atri N'Assouf

"Eghaf" - Atri N'Assouf

Here are the lads and lasses in action.

Hotels, Motels, Holiday Inns

Hotels. I've stayed in many in my time, some good, some bad, most just adequate. Inevitably it is the bad ones that are the most memorable. So I would like to dedicate this post to the likes of Hotel Brian in Amsterdam, Hotel Phoenix in Kinshasa, the hotel next to the market in Przemysl in Poland, and the hotel in rural Moldova where the staff locked us in our bedrooms at 9pm and went home for the evening.

Most of the songs about hotels that I know also fall into one of three types: the ones where there is something awry about the hotel, which quite often is a metaphor for something or other; the ones about lonely and/or weary travellers; and cheating songs. Here are a couple of each. They are all excellent, but I would particularly commend to you the contribution from the Wainwright family - Loudon's classic "musician of the road" number and his daughter Lucy's lovely version of Richard Shindell's "Next Best Western", which I first heard over at Cover Lay Down.

"Cheap Hotel" - Ron Sexsmith (from "Blue Boy", 2001)

"The Farmer's Hotel" - Silver Jews (from "Tanglewood Numbers", 2005)

"Motel Blues" - Loudon Wainwright III (from "Album II", 1972)

"Next Best Western" - Lucy Wainwright Roche (from "8 Songs", 2007)

"Paper Thin" - Denise Lasalle (on "Lady In The Street", 1983)

"Third Rate Romance" - Jesse Winchester (on "Learn To Love It", 1974)

To finish things off, here is a rather shaky video for one of my all-time favourite hotel songs. It was a big radio hit back in the late 1970s but inexplicably never did much in the charts.

Funky Friday

Here is some early 1970s Nigerian funk for you, courtesy of Mr Segun Bucknor. Both tracks come from an excellent compilation of his work called "Who Say I Tire", released last year on Vampisoul Records.

"Love And Affection" - Segun Bucknor

"You Killing Me" - Segun Bucknor

And here is some more classic 1970s funk. Dig that bassline.

Dirk's Work

Today we feature one of the many brave foot-soldiers from the massed battalions of singer-songwriters who signed up to fight the good fight in the 1970s only to be mown down in their hundreds at the turn of the 1980s. Those of you who consider yourself veterans of the punk wars may sneer, but remember that the enemy were humans too.

The brave soldier in question is Dirk Hamilton, and happily he is still plugging away, like one of those Japanese soldiers who used to intermittently emerge from the undergrowth in Micronesia (to extend the military metaphor way past the point where it works). He had his shot at the big time in the second half of the 1970s with two albums on ABC Records and two more on Elektra/ Asylum. He then took a bit of a break before coming back in the late 1980s, since when he has been releasing albums under his own steam at regular intervals. And he is still gigging regularly in Texas, California and Italy (which was where he has his greatest commercial success). More details are available on his website.

I picked up last year vinyl copies of his two albums on Elektra, "Meet Me At The Crux" (1978) and "Thug Of Love" (1980). There is a very clear Van Morrison influence - which is no bad thing - and there are also hints of early Bruce Springsteen and Steve Forbert, which is no surprise as they were both pretty heavily influenced by Van around that time. While I wouldn't say Dirk was a lost genius, there is certainly enough good stuff on those two albums to suggest that with a few breaks he could have been much better known than he is.

Here are a couple of tracks from each album. Apologies for the sound quality.

"How Do You Fight Fire?" - Dirk Hamilton (1978)

"Every Inch A Moon" - Dirk Hamilton (1978)

"Colder Than Mexican Snow" - Dirk Hamilton (1980)

"Wholly Bowled Over" - Dirk Hamilton (1980)

I don't know whether Dirk wore white sox.