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| Serenity Now! Here I am in Child's Park in the Summer of 2009 |
How the devil are you? Hope you're fine and dandy and thanks for reading this . . .if you aren't, well you should be!
I thought I'd kind of continue from where I left off for today's subject matter. Last time I talked about three pieces of music that have significant meaning to me. Well, in a "Desert Island Discs" mood - Linda and I have enjoyed listening to old shows online at www.bbc.co.uk/radiofour - I thought I'd talk about 5 more pieces of music that have come to have significant meaning to me - making the 8 tracks that I would take with me to the desert island. What would be my luxury item and book? Well keep reading and I'll tell you!
So far, the tracks I've chosen are "You Make Me Feel Brand New" by Simply Red, "Hello Goodbye" by The Beatles and "Born in the UK" by Badly Drawn Boy. What are my other choices? Well, the first choice is being played by the wonderful Chris Evans right now as I listen to today's BBC Radio 2 Breakfast Show replay. The tune is "Jumping Jack Flash" by the self proclaimed greatest rock and roll band in the world, namely The Rolling Stones.
It was released as a single on 24 May 1968 and reached the top of the UK charts and peaked at number three in the United States. To me it really is a song that exemplifies the band. Moody yet upbeat, the song is an instant foot tapper. I always enjoyed playing the song on "The Late English Breakfast" and "The Nightclub" back in the day!
Truly a magnificent piece of work don't you think?
Anyhow, what's next. Well, our shows on Valley Free Radio ( http://www.valleyfreeradio.org/ ) were known for doing musical u-turns in the best possible taste! ( A nod to the late great Kenny Everett there! ) So, what about the theme tune to the homage to all things British on that station full of eccentric Yanks? It is a piece of music written by Luciano Michelini that was originally music to a commercial and became the theme tune to possibly the most wonderful situation comedy ever devised - "Curb Your Enthusiasm" Any time I hear that music I always smile and think of the many happy hours Linda, my Mum and I have spent watching the show. I will always associate that tune with the two hours I spent on Mondays between January 2007 and March 2009 infiltrating the airwaves on 103.3FM here in the Pioneer Valley.
Happy days indeed!
When it comes to the music your parents listen to, you either love it or hate it don't you? It's something you latch on to either straight away or become a fan later in life. The latter is applicable to yours truly.
I had the opportunity to go watch the next artist some years ago. I turned it down. D'oh! I say this because I'm talking about Johnny Cash. Now, the great man was a big favourite of my Mum's; he still is for that matter. Linda and I love listening to the man in black. He truly is an American icon. I'll never forget how interested people were in downtown Northampton when Linda and I were canvassing support for Valley Free Radio and mentioned that the show we'd be doing that day was a Johnny Cash tribute night. People were amazed. I think Johnny Cash tribute nights were very popular on our show - Johnny Cash was probably the most popular act we featured when we did a tribute night. I could have selected eight Johnny Cash songs but being ruthless in my choices I went for one that would entertain and make me smile at the same time on the desert island - "A Boy Named Sue"
Here he is performing the song in 1969 at San Quentin jail. Did you know the show was filmed by Granada TV, the commercial TV channel for the North West of England? Our show was full of interesting facts like that. It was a bloody good reason to tune in.
My next tune is down to the fact I had friends back home in Congleton who were into a particular kind of music called Northern Soul. We had an excellent show spotlighting this type of music one Sunday night in January of 2009. Northern soul is a music and dance movement that emerged from the British mod scene, initially in northern England in the late 1960s. Northern soul mainly consists of a particular style of soul music based on the mid-1960s Tamla Motown sound. The phrase northern soul emanated from the record shop Soul City in Covent Garden, London, which was run by journalist Dave Godin. In a 2002 interview with Chris Hunt of Mojo magazine, Godin said he had first had the idea for the phrase "Northern Soul" in 1968, to help employees at his record shop to help staff differentiate the more modern funkier sounds from the smoother, Motown-influenced soul of a few years earlier:
"I had started to notice that northern football fans who were in London to follow their team were coming into the store to buy records, but they weren't interested in the latest developments in the black American chart. I devised the name as a shorthand sales term. It was just to say 'if you've got customers from the north, don't waste time playing them records currently in the U.S. black chart, just play them what they like - 'Northern Soul'."
My choice is a song that is one of the rarest songs in existence. It is performed by Frank Wilson. He had been a producer for many of the top acts including Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross and The Supremes and The Four Tops to name a few. He decided to try his hand at singing himself. 250 demos were made. He didn't like it. Only two remained. It is one of the rarest songs in existence. It is valued at 25,000 pounds. The title - "Do I Love You? (Indeed I Do)" (Double points if you got the bit in brackets!)
As Signal Radio's Dave Evison used to say when I used to listen to this music on Sunday nights - "roll back the carpet!" Surely a dance floor filler if ever there was one!
So, we come to my last choice. It's a theme tune to the best football highlight show ever. I named my football show on Valley Free Radio after it ( Match of The Day The USA Way http://www.motdusaway.blogspot.com/ ) It's tune that is still used in Britain and takes ex-pat Brits back to when they were kids in the 70's stopping up late on Saturday night. Truly a magical piece of music!
It's one of my favourite tunes of all time and quite honestly I fill up when I hear it. Having hosted radio shows has been a dream come true. Despite all the crap that life throws at you I have realized a dream having hosted a music show and a football show and they can never ever take that away from me.
So, there are the final selections for the eight pieces of music I'd take with me to a desert island. In keeping with being that little Brit different, I'd take all eight tunes because they all mean so very much to me. I couldn't leave one behind. I'd also take a history of Italian football with me along with a history of Barcelona FC. That would keep the complete works of William Shakespeare company! My luxury item would be, oh God, let me think . . .an IPad 2!!!!!
Enjoy your music,
Eddie
