It's New Year's Eve, which for me and my friend Mr F means the annual themed party at our favourite local. This year's theme is the 1970s. I'm going as the three day week.
We have been trying to persuade the landlady to turn the back bar into a roller disco, but she is worried someone will bump into the fondue and cause boiling cheese injuries.
To get me in the mood I've been listening to one of the classiest albums of 1976, "Silk Degrees". Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Boz Scaggs.
Have a good night whatever you're doing. May the year ahead be a good one and, especially for our Scottish readers, may your feet be first and your hogs be many. I think I've got that right.
Once again we have lost many musicians this year, and not all of their deaths got the attention they merited in the media. Here are some you may have missed. RIP to them and all the others.
We get things started with a trio of African greats, follow them with some super soul sounds and finish off with a folkie reflecting on when he first heard "The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter" by The Incredible String Band.
Incidentally Mike Heron of ISB - one of my musical heroes who I have been lucky enough to meet - turned 80 yesterday. Happy birthday Mr Heron.
It is that time of year when all music bloggers are contractually obliged to tell you about the music they have enjoyed in the last 12 months. So let's get it over and done with.
Gigs of the year: Elizabeth Cook and Bas Jan. Honorable mentions for Johnny Clarke, Tony Christie and the Ebony Steel Band play Kraftwerk (not all together, although that would have been even better).
Delayed gig of the year: For the third year in a row, the Abyssinians. Here's hoping it will be sixth time lucky in March 2023.
Art exhibition of the year (and contender for most eagerly anticipated album of 2023): Gina Birch.
Ten good albums from 2022 (in alphabetical order by artist):
Bas Jan - "Baby U Know"
Bonny Light Horseman - "Rolling Golden Holy"
Laure Briard - "Ne Pas Trop Rester Bleue"
Etran de L'Air - "Agadez"
King Jammy - "Destroys The Virus With Dub"
Noori & His Dorpa Band - "Beja Power!"
Erin Rae - "Lighten Up"
Pierce Turner - "Terrible Good"
Various Artists - "Adrian Sherwood Presents: Dub No Frontiers"
Derya Yildirim & Grup Şimşek - "DOST 2"
Here are just some of my favourite tracks from 2022 that aren't on any of the albums mentioned above:
In this special seasonal edition of our long-running series we bring you glad tidings and multiple versions of "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus". Some are gold, some make frankly no sense, and some are just mehhh!
We kick things off with the 1952 original by Jimmy Boyd and finish up, as is traditional, with the Mandatory Reggae Version. Strangely Johnny Clarke didn't include it in his set when I saw him live earlier this year.
There are eight more interpretations in between from a host of well-known names (and also Bobby Sherman). Obviously The Ronettes are the best but John Prine isn't far behind.
That's it from me until the 27th. Best wishes to all of you and to all of yours. See you on the other side.
Some Lonnie Holley for you tomorrow, for no better reason than his surname is vaguely seasonal. One track each from "Just Before Music" (2012) and "Keeping A Record Of it" (2013).
I was lucky enough to see Mr Holley live at the church down the end of my road a few years ago. I'm not sure how to describe his performance. Let's settle for "distinctive".
Very sorry to hear the sad news about Terry Hall, to whom others have already paid more eloquent tribute than I could.
For much of the 1970s we lived in South Africa and I relied on John Peel's weekly show on the BBC World Service to keep up with the UK music scene. I can still remember the thrill I felt the first time I heard "Too Much Too Young" come fizzing through the static. RIP Mr Hall.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Slim Harpo. And also Ms Phoebe Snow, with a song that isn't a tribute to Slim but which we are going to pretend is for the purposes of this post.
Earlier this week that Rol of My Top Ten fame featured The Cleaners from Venus in one of his celebrity tributes - David Bailey as you ask. This got me reminiscing about the period in the early 1980s when I lived in Wivenhoe just round the corner from Mr Cleaner himself, Martin Newell.
Back in those days Martin was only releasing music via the medium of home-made cassettes - apparently the most time-consuming part of the production process was colouring in the black and white photocopies that served as the cover sleeve - and I would pop round and buy them whenever he had a new one.
I still have a handful of those cassettes and I dug out this one from the winter of 1983 as it is vaguely seasonal. By this time Martin had worked out that you could speed up the production process considerably by just printing the covers on coloured paper.
Here are both sides of the single. The sound quality isn't brilliant but as they are taken from a cassette that is nearly 40 years old its a miracle you can hear anything at all. If you listen right to the end of "When Fire Burns Dreams" you will understand the relevance of today's video.
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