Category Archives: Music

Music

The Kinks’ Autumn Almanac (1967)

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When I look back at this blog’s cov­er­age of influ­en­tial British rock bands of the six­ties, I see that the “big three” of The Bea­t­les, The Rolling Stones and The Who have all had their moment in the spot­light. There’s anoth­er band of the time, though, that arguably deserves to be count­ed in a “big four” and that is the band formed in Muswell Hill in 1964 by Ray and Dave Davies, name­ly The Kinks.

Unlike the afore­men­tioned bands who unar­guably achieved the sta­tus of inter­na­tion­al leg­ends of rock, the Kinks nev­er ful­ly cap­i­talised on their oppor­tu­ni­ties and tal­ents. For exam­ple, although the band emerged dur­ing the great British rhythm and blues and Mersey­beat scenes and joined those bands spear­head­ing the so-called British Inva­sion of the Unit­ed States, the con­stant fight­ing between the Davies broth­ers (a pop-cul­tur­al fore­run­ner of the Gal­lagher broth­ers, if ever there was one) led to a tour­ing ban in 1965.

As well as the volatile rela­tion­ship between the broth­ers, the song-writ­ing style of Ray Davies some­times took the band away from the expect­ed com­mer­cial music their con­tem­po­raries were striv­ing for. He sim­ply had too much wit and intel­li­gence and eclec­ti­cism, draw­ing on British music hall, folk and coun­try music to inform some of his out­put. Take 1968’s The Kinks Are the Vil­lage Green Preser­va­tion Soci­ety album: released the same week as the Bea­t­les’ White album, it con­tained a col­lec­tion of char­ac­ter stud­ies and med­i­ta­tions on a dis­ap­pear­ing Eng­lish way of life, all bril­liant­ly observed. Sad­ly, in a com­mer­cial world dom­i­nat­ed by psy­che­delia and effects ped­als and the Sum­mer of Love, The Kinks had turned down the dis­tor­tion on Dave’s gui­tar, and the album sunk with­out a trace (despite it lat­er becom­ing estab­lished crit­i­cal­ly as an all-time clas­sic).

Despite such occa­sion­al com­mer­cial fail­ures, the band remain one of the most influ­en­tial bands of all time, and you only have to look at the songs to know why. You Real­ly Got Me and All Day and All of the Night basi­cal­ly intro­duced the idea of the three-chord riff; and did much to turn rock ‘n’ roll into rock. Glo­ri­ous­ly melod­ic, sto­ry­telling songs abound: Sun­ny After­noon, Water­loo Sun­set, Ded­i­cat­ed Fol­low­er of Fash­ion, David Watts, Come Danc­ing, Lola. A host of future pop stars cit­ed their influ­ence and held them in high esteem (just ask Damon Albarn or Paul Weller).

A per­son­al favourite of mine is Autumn Almanac, a charm­ing vignette of Baroque pop released in 1967; here’s a Top of the Pops appear­ance to appre­ci­ate, and the lyrics below to remind us of just how Eng­lish-pas­toral-roman­tic Ray Davies could get.

From the dew-soaked hedge creeps a crawly cater­pil­lar
When the dawn begins to crack, it’s all part of my autumn almanac
Breeze blows leaves of a musty-coloured yel­low
So I sweep them in my sack, yes, yes, yes, it’s my autumn almanac

Fri­day evenings, peo­ple get togeth­er
Hid­ing from the weath­er, tea and toast­ed
But­tered cur­rant buns, can’t com­pen­sate
For lack of sun because the summer’s all gone

La la la la, oh my poor rheumat­ic back
Yes, yes, yes, it’s my autumn almanac
La la la la, oh my autumn almanac
Yes, yes, yes, it’s my autumn almanac

I like my foot­ball on a Sat­ur­day
Roast beef on Sun­days, all right
I go to Black­pool for my hol­i­days
Sit in the open sun­light

This is my street and I’m nev­er gonna to leave it
And I’m always gonna to stay here if I live to be nine­ty-nine
‘Cause all the peo­ple I meet, seem to come from my street
And I can’t get away because it’s call­ing me, come on home
Hear it call­ing me, come on home

La la la la, oh my autumn almanac
Yes, yes, yes, it’s my autumn almanac
La la la la, oh my autumn almanac
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes
Bop bop bop bop bop, whoa
Bop bop bop bop bop, whoa

The Kinks
Music

Aram Khachaturian’s Adagio From Spartacus (1954)

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Khacha­turi­an! A great name, for a start, that I recall see­ing writ­ten on the back of one of those com­pi­la­tion albums of clas­si­cal music, owned by my par­ents. That album was actu­al­ly a great intro­duc­tion to the clas­sics; it’s where I first heard The Flight of the Bum­ble­bee, The Ride of the Valkyries, The Blue Danube, The Hall of the Moun­tain King, and, in the case of Khacha­turi­an, the fren­zied Sabre Dance.

Aram Khacha­turi­an was born in 1903 in Tblisi, Geor­gia, of Armen­ian extrac­tion (I think it was that patronymic suf­fix, -ian, com­mon to Armen­ian sur­names – such as Kar­dashi­an – that added a cer­tain some­thing). Fol­low­ing the Sovi­eti­za­tion of the Cau­ca­sus in 1921, Khacha­turi­an moved to Moscow, where he enrolled at the Gnessin Musi­cal Insti­tute and sub­se­quent­ly stud­ied at the Moscow Con­ser­va­to­ry. He wrote sev­er­al sig­nif­i­cant con­cer­tos and sym­phonies, but he is best known for his bal­lets Gayane (from which comes the Sabre Dance) and Spar­ta­cus (from which comes the focus of this blog, the cap­ti­vat­ing Ada­gio of Spar­ta­cus and Phry­gia).

Spar­ta­cus fol­lows the tri­als and tribu­la­tions of the famous glad­i­a­tor-gen­er­al, Spar­ta­cus, the leader of the slave upris­ing against the Romans in 73 BC (which actu­al­ly hap­pened, inci­den­tal­ly, and was exhaus­tive­ly chron­i­cled by Plutarch, but that – as I so often have to say – is anoth­er sto­ry!).

The Roman con­sul Cras­sus has returned to Rome from his lat­est con­quests in a tri­umphal pro­ces­sion. Among his cap­tives are the Thra­cian king Spar­ta­cus and his wife Phry­gia. To enter­tain Cras­sus and his cronies, Spar­ta­cus is sent into the glad­i­a­to­r­i­al ring and is forced to kill a close friend. Hor­ri­fied at his deed, Spar­ta­cus incites his fel­low cap­tives to rebel­lion, and ends up free­ing the slave women, includ­ing Phry­gia. The Ada­gio marks their cel­e­bra­tion.

It open with a del­i­cate syn­co­pat­ed rhythm from the strings, and a series of trills on the flute. A slow ascend­ing scale is played by the cel­los, and the oboe eas­es the music into the famous ‘love theme’ for the first time. It’s tremen­dous stuff and read­ers of a cer­tain age will almost cer­tain­ly remem­ber its use as the theme music to the TV pro­gramme, The Onedin Line.

Below, I present a ver­sion of the bal­let per­formed by Anna Nikuli­na and Mikhail Lobukhin of the Bol­shoi Bal­let. In addi­tion, below that, I have cho­sen anoth­er ver­sion: a piano-only ren­der­ing of the music, and I include it because it is just too exquis­ite to omit. The pianist is Matthew Cameron, who, as well as being a vir­tu­oso con­cert pianist, appears to be good-look­ing and, accord­ing to his web­site, col­lects antique his­toric swords, with a col­lec­tion dat­ing back to the 9th cen­tu­ry. Hat tip!

Aram Khacha­turi­an
Music

Steely Dan’s Kid Charlemagne (1976)

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Wal­ter Beck­er and Don­ald Fagen met in a cof­fee shop at New York State’s Bard Col­lege in 1967, dis­cov­ered that they had sim­i­lar tastes and opin­ions about music, and soon start­ed writ­ing songs togeth­er. After a stint ped­dling songs in Manhattan’s famous Brill Build­ing, the duo moved to Los Ange­les to try their luck on the west coast. Real­is­ing their songs were too com­plex for oth­er record­ing artists, they formed Steely Dan, and with pro­duc­er Gary Katz, would go on to pro­duce sev­en fab­u­lous albums of sophis­ti­cat­ed jazz rock between 1972 and 1980.

Their quest for per­fec­tion is leg­endary, and the duo’s shared aes­thet­ic meant that Steely Dan would soon enough became less “band” and more Beck­er and Fagen backed by a series of ses­sion musi­cians. They would audi­tion musi­cian after musi­cian and com­mis­sion take after take in a fas­tid­i­ous search for just the right sound, just the right style, to com­ple­ment their vision. But boy, did it pay off, as they got to har­ness the tal­ents of such leg­ends as gui­tarist Lar­ry Carl­ton, bass play­er Chuck Rainey, and drum­mer Bernard Pur­die, not to men­tion one Michael McDon­ald of Doo­bie Broth­ers fame on back­ing vocals.

Their well-craft­ed songs were large­ly crit­i­cal and com­mer­cial suc­cess­es and many would become radio sta­ples: Reel­in’ In The Years, Do It Again, Rik­ki Don’t Lose That Num­ber, Hait­ian Divorce, Peg. For me, one song in par­tic­u­lar sums up not only the genius of the music but Fagen’s won­der­ful sto­ry­telling abil­i­ty: Kid Charle­magne, the lead sin­gle from 1976’s The Roy­al Scam album. The song tells the sto­ry of the rise and down­fall of counter-cul­ture fig­ure­head Owsley Stan­ley (nick­named “Bear”), the Grate­ful Dead audio engi­neer and self-pro­claimed “King of Acid”. Bear’s clan­des­tine lab­o­ra­to­ry was respon­si­ble for sup­ply­ing the major­i­ty of the bur­geon­ing Cal­i­forn­ian LSD scene of the six­ties, and in him, Fagen found the per­fect char­ac­ter to weave a typ­i­cal­ly noir sto­ry around.

Take a look at the lyrics; they are full of deft touch­es. Fagen describes one of Bear’s par­tic­u­lar­ly suc­cess­ful LSD for­mu­la­tions: “Just by chance you crossed the dia­mond with the pearl”. And on Bear’s ded­i­ca­tion to his craft: “On the hill the stuff was laced with kerosene, but yours was kitchen clean”. And when things start to unrav­el (Bear was inevitably bust­ed of course), we can sense the para­noia: “Clean this mess up else we’ll all end up in jail, those test tubes and the scale, just get it all out of here”. And when the brown stuff is about to hit the fan, the cli­mac­tic ques­tion-response “Is there gas in the car? Yes, there’s gas in the car”. At this point I’m not only engaged with the sto­ry, I’m pos­i­tive­ly will­ing them to get the hell out of there!

Fagen’s lyrics over­lay a musi­cal pack­age that boasts a won­der­ful funk back­beat cour­tesy of Rainey and Pur­die, razor sharp rhythms and melodies from Beck­er and Fagen them­selves and from jazz pianists Paul Grif­fin and Don Grol­nick, and an astound­ing gui­tar solo (and out­ro) from Lar­ry Carl­ton. It is musi­cal alche­my of the high­est order.

Here’s the best live ver­sion I can find, in which the duo seem to have exer­cised the same rigour with this set of musi­cians as they did mak­ing the album!

While the music played you worked by can­dle­light
Those San Fran­cis­co nights
Were the best in town
Just by chance you crossed the dia­mond with the pearl
You turned it on the world
That’s when you turned the world around

Did you feel like Jesus
Did you real­ize
That you were a cham­pi­on in their eyes

On the hill the stuff was laced with kerosene
But yours was kitchen clean
Every­one stopped to stare at your tech­ni­col­or motor home
Every A‑Frame had your num­ber on the wall
You must have had it all
You’d go to LA on a dare
And you’d go it alone

Could you live for­ev­er
Could you see the day
Could you feel your whole world fall apart and fade away
Get along, get along Kid Charle­magne
Get along Kid Charle­magne

Now your patrons have all left you in the red
Your low rent friends are dead
This life can be very strange
All those day­glow freaks who used to paint the face
They’ve joined the human race
Some things will nev­er change

Son you were mis­tak­en
You are obso­lete
Look at all the white men on the street
Get along, get along Kid Charle­magne
Get along Kid Charle­magne

Clean this mess up else we’ll all end up in jail
Those test tubes and the scale
Just get them all out of here
Is there gas in the car
Yes, there’s gas in the car
I think the peo­ple down the hall
Know who you are

Care­ful what you car­ry
’Cause the man is wise
You are still an out­law in their eyes
Get along, get along Kid Charle­magne
Get along Kid Charle­magne

Wal­ter Beck­er and Don­ald Fagen
Music

Johann Sebastian Bach’s Christmas Oratorio (1734)

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The Christ­mas Ora­to­rio (Wei­h­nacht­so­ra­to­ri­um) was one of three ora­to­rios writ­ten by Johann Sebas­t­ian Bach in 1734 and 1735 for major feasts, the oth­er two being the Ascen­sion Ora­to­rio and the East­er Ora­to­rio. The Christ­mas Ora­to­rio is by far the longest: in full, it is near­ly three hours long but it is made up of six parts, each can­ta­ta being intend­ed for per­for­mance on one of the major feast days of the Christ­mas peri­od.

The first can­ta­ta would be played on Christ­mas Day, and describes the Birth of Jesus; the sec­ond, for 26th Decem­ber, describ­ing the annun­ci­a­tion to the shep­herds; the third (27th Decem­ber), the ado­ra­tion of the shep­herds; the fourth (New Year’s Day), the cir­cum­ci­sion and nam­ing of Jesus; the fifth (the first Sun­day after New Year), the jour­ney of the Magi; and the final one (Epiphany, on 6th Jan­u­ary), the ado­ra­tion of the Magi.

Bach wrote his pieces in his role as musi­cal direc­tor for the city of Leipzig, where he was respon­si­ble for church music for the four church­es there, and head of the inter­na­tion­al­ly known boys’ choir, the “Thoman­er­chor”. The ora­to­rio was incor­po­rat­ed into the ser­vices of the two main church­es, Thomaskirche and Niko­laikirche, dur­ing the Christ­mas sea­son of 1734. That would have been some Christ­mas ser­vice to behold!

The part I’m high­light­ing here is the first aria from Part I, fea­tur­ing oboes d’amore, vio­lins and an alto voice, and known by its open­ing line, Bere­ite dich, Zion, mit zärtlichen Trieben (“Make your­self ready, Zion, with ten­der desires”). It is here per­formed exquis­ite­ly by this choir­boy and soloists from Munich’s Tölz­er Knaben­chor, and con­duct­ed by Niko­laus Harnon­court. A more haunt­ing piece of music fit for this sea­son would be hard to find. Grab a mince pie and lis­ten to this. Mer­ry Christ­mas!

Bere­ite dich, Zion, mit zärtlichen Trieben,
Den Schön­sten, den Lieb­sten bald bei dir zu sehn!
Deine Wan­gen
Müssen heut viel schön­er prangen,
Eile, den Bräutigam sehn­lichst zu lieben!

Music

Louis Jordan’s A Man’s Best Friend Is A Bed (1953)

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My daugh­ters’ piano teacher, Chris, is a gift­ed pianist who plays in a band called Louis Louis Louis. They spe­cialise in jazz, swing, big band, boo­gie-woo­gie and jump blues, focus­ing (as their name sug­gests) on the three great Louis’s: Jor­dan, Arm­strong and Pri­ma. Sad­ly, the time con­straint of the piano les­son win­dow (along with the girls’ mor­ti­fi­ca­tion at any con­ver­sa­tion ini­ti­at­ed by me going beyond nor­mal pleas­antries) pre­cludes me from pro­claim­ing to Chris: “I love Louis Jor­dan!”. Yet it’s true: I dis­cov­ered the mar­vel­lous up-tem­po jump blues and rich vocal tones of Louis Jor­dan and his Tym­pa­ny Five many years ago, specif­i­cal­ly from this com­pi­la­tion album here called Out Of Print:


Jor­dan had start­ed his career in the big-band swing era of the 1930s, being a mem­ber of the influ­en­tial Savoy Ball­room orches­tra, led by drum­mer Chick Webb, in New York’s Harlem dis­trict. He spe­cialised in the alto sax, but also played tenor sax, bari­tone sax, piano and clar­inet. He was also a great song­writer, a con­sum­mate­ly good singer, and had a won­der­ful­ly com­ic and ebul­lient per­son­al­i­ty that soon made him stand out from the crowd. This was the same peri­od that a young Ella Fitzger­ald was com­ing to promi­nence and she and Jor­dan often sang duets on stage.

Jor­dan would soon have his own band, pared down to a sex­tet, and a res­i­den­cy at the Elks Ren­dezvous club, down the street from the Savoy on Lenox Avenue. Their style was a dynam­ic, up-tem­po, dance-ori­ent­ed hybrid of ear­li­er gen­res which became known as “jump blues” and was an instant hit with the audi­ences. His band, the Tym­pa­ny Five, start­ed record­ing music with Dec­ca records in Decem­ber 1938, and through­out the 1940s they released dozens of hit songs, includ­ing Sat­ur­day Night Fish Fry, the com­ic clas­sic There Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chick­ens, and the mul­ti-mil­lion sell­er, Choo Choo Ch’Boogie.

From July 1946 to May 1947, Jor­dan had five con­sec­u­tive num­ber 1 songs, and held the top slot for 44 con­sec­u­tive weeks, an amaz­ing tes­ta­ment to his pop­u­lar­i­ty at the time. It’s true to say that his­to­ry has giv­en him a raw deal, since his name is not as wide­ly known as it should be, giv­en the above stats (out­side sophis­ti­cat­ed cir­cles such as our own, of course!).

I’ve select­ed a song (from many can­di­dates) that is typ­i­cal of Jordan’s wit and charm: 1953’s A Man’s Best Friend Is A Bed. As well as being a jump­ing tune, the song extols the com­forts of the bed, and on cold morn­ings like today, who can’t relate to that?

Lis­ten to Louis: 

I want a great big com­fort­able bed, so I can real­ly spread out, and all that
Take it from me Ed, A man’s best friend is a bed

I want a big fat pil­low that’s soft­er than a bil­lowy cloud, for my head
Take it from me Nat, the best head piece ain’t a hat

Yes, a friend will ditch you, a horse will pitch you
A car will give you lots of grief
A dog will bite you, your wife will fight you
But if you want some gen­uine relief

Just get a great big com­fort­able bed, where you can real­ly spread out, and all that
Take it from me Ted, a man’s best friend is a bed

When you’re in trou­ble, wor­ries dou­ble
And every­body’s talk­ing back
Just take your shoes off, you’ll shake the blues off
If you would just let go and hit the sack

In a nice cool com­fort­able bed where you can real­ly spread out, and all that
Take it from me Ted, a man’s best friend is a bed

Ask any sol­dier, marine or sailor
Or any­one who’s been with­out, what do they miss most,
What thought is fore­most? No Sir, you’re wrong!

It’s just a great big com­fort­able bed, where you can real­ly spread out, and all that
Take it from me Ted, a man’s best friend is a bed

Yeah, if you dig me Jack, you’ll hit the sack
This ain’t no junk boy, hit that bunk
Take it from me Ted, a man’s best friend is a bed

Louis Jor­dan
Music

The Everly Brothers’ Cathy’s Clown (1960)

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The Ever­ly Broth­ers were first-gen­er­a­tion pio­neers of rock ‘n’ roll’s first gold­en era, but they always stood apart from many of their con­tem­po­raries due to their roots in rur­al South­ern white music tra­di­tions rather than the blues and R&B that drove Elvis and Jer­ry Lee Lewis and Lit­tle Richard et al. Bob Dylan was a fan (“We owe those guys every­thing; they start­ed it all”), whilst John Lennon and Paul McCart­ney mod­elled their own vocal blend on Don and Phil’s tight har­monies. Simon & Gar­funkel were clear­ly inspired, as were the Byrds, the Hol­lies, and the Eagles who all acknowl­edged their debt to the broth­ers’ unique sound.

They were born (Don in 1937 and Phil in 1939) into a fam­i­ly already steeped in coun­try music. Ike Ever­ly, their father, was a well-respect­ed gui­tarist who land­ed a show on radio sta­tion KMA in Shenan­doah, Iowa, in 1944, and he moved the fam­i­ly there. Short­ly after that, Don and Phil began appear­ing on his pro­gram, and by 1949 they were reg­u­lars on the show, lend­ing their angel­ic har­monies to tra­di­tion­al moun­tain tunes pop­u­lar­ized by the likes of the Blue Sky Boys, the Stan­ley Broth­ers and the Lou­vin Broth­ers (there were a lot of fam­i­ly-based groups in those days!).

In 1953, the fam­i­ly moved to Ken­tucky, and the fol­low­ing year Don and Phil got their first break when a fam­i­ly friend, gui­tarist Chet Atkins, picked one of Don’s ear­ly com­po­si­tions for Kit­ty Wells to record. Atkins fur­ther con­vinced the broth­ers to move to Nashville to try to break into the busi­ness as a duo, and they were soon picked up by Archie Bley­er, the own­er of New York label Cadence Records, who was suit­ably con­vinced by what he’d heard to make a record with them.

The first song Bley­er cut with the Everlys was Bye Bye Love, record­ed at RCA Stu­dios in Nashville on 1st March 1957. It became an instant nation­al smash and over the next six years, the Everlys would land a stag­ger­ing num­ber of tunes on the upper reach­es of the charts — includ­ing Wake Up Lit­tle Susie, Bird Dog, and All I Have to Do Is Dream (all writ­ten by hus­band and wife song­writ­ing team, Felice and Boudleaux Bryant), as well as a hand­ful penned by Don or Phil, such as (’Til) I Kissed You, When Will I Be Loved and Don’s love­ly paean to teenage roman­tic angst, Cathy’s Clown.

By the time the Everlys record­ed Cathy’s Clown in ear­ly 1960, their record­ing style was already very well-estab­lished. As always, the record­ing ses­sion was live with no over­dubs, and the instru­men­ta­tion was sim­ple: acoustic and elec­tric gui­tar, Floyd Cramer on piano, Floyd Chance on bass and Bud­dy Har­man on drums. Released on 4th April 1960, it hit num­ber one and remained there for five weeks.

For the next three years, the Everlys scored more hits, but by the end of 1964 the British Inva­sion was sweep­ing Amer­i­ca and the broth­ers’ look and sound start­ed to seem a bit dat­ed; their stag­ger­ing suc­cess began to sub­side. Nev­er­the­less, the Ever­ly Broth­ers’ place in pop his­to­ry is secure, and this song remains a fab­u­lous reminder of their won­der­ful­ly com­ple­men­tary vocal har­monies.

Phil Ever­ly, left, with broth­er Don
Music

Vincent Van Gogh’s Café Terrace at Night (1888)

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Vin­cent Van Gogh remains per­haps the most rep­re­sen­ta­tive, in the pub­lic imag­i­na­tion, of the “tor­tured genius”. Nev­er suc­cess­ful as an artist in his life­time, he suf­fered from bouts of psy­chot­ic delu­sions and men­tal insta­bil­i­ty, includ­ing that noto­ri­ous episode in which he took a razor to his left ear. Ulti­mate­ly, he took his own life: in 1890 he shot him­self in the chest with a revolver and died from his injuries two days lat­er. He was 37. But my, what an artis­tic lega­cy he left, and what tremen­dous glob­al fame he would achieve, posthumously…if he had only had an inkling!

Today, when we think of Van Gogh, a num­ber of his paint­ings spring to mind. There is his Sun­flower series (take your pick, there are many dif­fer­ent ver­sions), paint­ed in 1888 and 1889 with the gus­to, in Vincent’s own words, of a “Mar­seil­lais eat­ing bouil­l­abaisse”. There is The Star­ry Night (famous­ly name-checked in the open­ing line of Don McLean’s song, Vin­cent), paint­ed in 1889 and depict­ing the view from Vincent’s room in the asy­lum at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. There are his many self-por­traits (over 30, with and with­out ban­daged left ear). Or per­haps his won­der­ful­ly (and decep­tive­ly) child-like Bed­room at Arles.

There is one of Van Gogh’s paint­ings in par­tic­u­lar, how­ev­er, that appeals to my imag­i­na­tion the most, and that is his Café Ter­race at Night. Depict­ing a late-night cof­fee house in the Place du Forum in Arles, it brings togeth­er all the ele­ments of Van Gogh’s tal­ents in one won­der­ful­ly evoca­tive scene. Bathed in the light of a huge yel­low lantern, the café looks like the per­fect place to spend a warm summer’s eve, doesn’t it? I could wile away an hour or two there, watch­ing the world go by, no prob­lem!

An intense yel­low sat­u­rates the cafe and its awning, and projects beyond the café onto the cob­ble­stones of the street, which takes on a vio­let-pink tinge. The street leads away into the dark­ness under a blue sky stud­ded with larg­er-than-life stars. Dash­es of green from the tree in the top-right and the low­er wall of the café, along with the orange ter­ra­cot­ta of the café floor, add to the sat­is­fy­ing palette of this paint­ing. Van Gogh wrote that “the night is more alive and more rich­ly coloured than the day”, and on the strength of this piece I can see what he means.

Cafe Terrace at Night
Music

Johnny Cash’s Folsom Prison Blues (1955)

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The stock mar­ket crash that hap­pened in the Unit­ed States on 29th Octo­ber 1929 (“Black Tues­day”) pre­cip­i­tat­ed the 20th century’s longest and deep­est reces­sion known as the Great Depres­sion. To com­pound the finan­cial col­lapse, three waves of severe drought through­out the Thir­ties reduced the Great Plains to a “dust bowl”, caus­ing wide­spread pover­ty and famine in states such as Okla­homa, Kansas, and Arkansas. This was the world into which John­ny Cash was born. He was born in 1932, and lived with his fam­i­ly in one of F D Roosevelt’s New Deal colonies in Dyess, Arkansas. From age five he worked with his fam­i­ly in cot­ton fields, and expe­ri­enced their finan­cial and per­son­al strug­gles through­out drought and flood. If a deprived back­ground leads to authen­tic­i­ty in music, then John­ny Cash was sure­ly authen­tic!

He was also incred­i­bly gift­ed musi­cal­ly, with that amaz­ing bass-bari­tone voice of his, and after being dis­charged from the US Air Force in 1954, he launched a career that would turn him into one of the best­selling artists of all time and a coun­try music icon. His oth­er defin­ing char­ac­ter­is­tics were his ten­den­cy to mis­de­meanour as a result of alco­hol and drug abuse, and his nat­ur­al com­pas­sion for the under­dogs of soci­ety. The for­mer led to many set­backs from which Cash had to bounce back, whilst the lat­ter led him to activism on behalf of Native Amer­i­cans as well as a series of con­certs in high secu­ri­ty pris­ons.

Of his many come­backs, the biggest was undoubt­ed­ly the 1968 live album John­ny Cash at Fol­som Prison. Record­ed in front of an audi­ence of near­ly 2000 con­vict­ed crim­i­nals, in Folsom’s Din­ing Hall 2, it cement­ed his out­law rep­u­ta­tion and sta­tus as cham­pi­on of the down­trod­den, and it shot him back into the big time. Con­tain­ing defin­i­tive ver­sions of many Cash clas­sics, it’s a mas­ter­piece that’s sold con­sis­tent­ly ever since. He began, appro­pri­ate­ly enough, with Fol­som Prison Blues, the song he had first record­ed back in 1955.

Cash had been inspired to write this song after watch­ing the movie Inside the Walls of Fol­som Prison (1951) whilst serv­ing in West Ger­many in the US Air Force. The song com­bined two pop­u­lar folk styles, the “train song” and the “prison song”. It was record­ed at Sun Stu­dios in Mem­phis, Ten­nessee in July, 1955, pro­duced by the leg­endary Sam Phillips, and the musi­cians were Cash (vocals, gui­tar), Luther Perkins (gui­tar), and Mar­shall Grant (bass). Here is a great per­for­mance of the song by Cash and the Ten­nessee Three on the Jim­my Dean Show in 1964.

I hear the train a comin’, it’s rolling ’round the bend
And I ain’t seen the sun­shine since I don’t know when
I’m stuck in Fol­som prison, and time keeps drag­gin’ on
But that train keeps a rollin’ on down to San Antone

When I was just a baby my mama told me, “Son
Always be a good boy, don’t ever play with guns”
But I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die
When I hear that whis­tle blow­ing, I hang my head and cry

I bet there’s rich folks eat­ing in a fan­cy din­ing car
They’re prob­a­bly drinkin’ cof­fee and smok­ing big cig­ars
Well I know I had it com­ing, I know I can’t be free
But those peo­ple keep a‑movin’
And that’s what tor­tures me

Well if they freed me from this prison
If that rail­road train was mine
I bet I’d move it on a lit­tle far­ther down the line
Far from Fol­som prison, that’s where I want to stay
And I’d let that lone­some whis­tle blow my blues away

John­ny Cash and the Ten­nessee Three
John­ny Cash at Fol­som Prison
Music

The Rolling Stones’ (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction (1965)

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In April 1965, the Rolling Stones embarked on their first head­lin­ing tour of the Unit­ed States. They had already had two US top ten hits (Time Is On My Side and The Last Time) but in terms of the British inva­sion they were still a notch or two below bands such as Herman’s Her­mits and the Dave Clark Five. One song, writ­ten dur­ing this tour, would soon change that.

The sto­ry behind that song is enshrined in rock folk­lore. Mid­way through the tour, in a motel in Clear­wa­ter, Flori­da, Kei­th Richards woke up in the mid­dle of the night with a tune in his head. Fum­bling in the dark for his cas­sette recorder, he hit the record but­ton and played the eight-note gui­tar riff. He also mum­bled a lyric — “I can’t get no sat­is­fac­tion” – and then fell asleep. In Richards’ own words: “On the tape you can hear me drop the pick. The rest is me snor­ing”.

Richards didn’t think his riff would turn into any­thing com­mer­cial; nonethe­less, Mick Jag­ger was inspired to flesh out the lyrics and when the band’s tour took them to Chica­go just three days after Richards’ noc­tur­nal ram­blings, they dropped into Chess Stu­dios (home to their heroes Chuck Berry, Bo Did­dley and Mud­dy Waters) and laid down the song.

This first attempt was actu­al­ly an acoustic, folksy ver­sion of the song, sound­ing noth­ing like the swag­ger­ing stomp it would turn into. It didn’t take long for that trans­for­ma­tion to occur, how­ev­er: just two days lat­er the band re-record­ed the song, this time in RCA Stu­dios on Hol­ly­wood Boule­vard. Richards had just acquired a Mae­stro FZ‑1 Fuzz-Tone ped­al, Char­lie Watts put down a dif­fer­ent tem­po, and the band gave the song a far more aggres­sive feel.The song was released as a sin­gle in the Unit­ed States in June 1965. It was a smash hit, giv­ing the Stones their first US num­ber one and set­ting the band on their tra­jec­to­ry to become the “Great­est Rock and Roll Band in the World”. Here’s a suit­ably elec­tri­fy­ing per­for­mance deliv­ered by the band and filmed dur­ing a quick tour of Ire­land a few weeks after the song hit num­ber one.

Music

Johannes Brahms’s Hungarian Dance no. 5 in G‑minor (1869)

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Accord­ing to influ­en­tial con­duc­tor Hans von Bülow, the Ger­man com­pos­er Johannes Brahms was one of the “three Bs” of musi­cal com­po­si­tion along with Johann Sebas­t­ian Bach and Lud­wig van Beethoven (an acco­lade that Brahms him­self would prob­a­bly have reject­ed giv­en his per­son­al ven­er­a­tion for both those com­posers). He was a vir­tu­oso pianist and a pro­lif­ic com­pos­er of sym­phonies, cham­ber music, piano, organ and choral works through­out the sec­ond half of the 19th cen­tu­ry. How­ev­er, it’s his ear­ly expe­ri­ences lead­ing to his series of Hun­gar­i­an dances that inter­est us here.

By the mid­dle of the 19th Cen­tu­ry, scores of Hun­gar­i­an immi­grants and refugees from through­out the Aus­tro-Hun­gar­i­an Empire were flood­ing into Aus­tria – most­ly to Vien­na, but also to many oth­er towns includ­ing Brahms’s home­town of Ham­burg. As a young musi­cian at the begin­ning of his musi­cal career, Brahms had to play light piano music at tav­erns to make mon­ey. He would also occa­sion­al­ly get hired as an accom­pa­nist for a tour­ing musi­cian, and on one evening he had the good for­tune to meet one of Hungary’s great tour­ing vio­lin­ists, Eduard Reményi. Brahms thus learned gyp­sy music in the inti­mate musi­cal com­pa­ny of the great­est gyp­sy vio­lin­ist of the time.

For­ev­er after cher­ish­ing gyp­sy music, Brahms would go on to pub­lish two sets of Hun­gar­i­an Dances for two pianos, 21 pieces in all. To this day, how­ev­er, Hun­gar­i­an Dance No. 5 is prob­a­bly the most beloved of his Dances. And right­ly so, with its enchant­i­ng first theme in a minor key, evok­ing the swag­ger and grav­i­tas of a mus­ta­chioed Slav lover. The first orches­tra­tion of No. 5 was not done by Brahms him­self but by Mar­tin Schmel­ing, but it was this orches­tra­tion of Brahms’s trans­for­ma­tion of gyp­sy music that helped it become one of the most trea­sured pieces in West­ern music’s reper­toire. Enjoy this suit­ably rous­ing ver­sion, appro­pri­ate­ly enough by the Hun­gar­i­an Phil­har­mon­ic Orches­tra.

 

Johannes Brahms