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Reel Around The Fountain is one of my favourite Smiths songs.
I used to play this album to death in the mid-80's when I went through a sort punk-goth phase. There's a nightclub called Spiders in Hull which I used to frequent every Saturday night and this album was one of the club's regular dancefloor smashes for us depressives lol!
Good evening, hope you're all well I'm feeling pretty sh^gged out after a two-hour workout, but I'll hopefully stay awake long enough to post a few more goodies...
No.234: "The Queen Is Dead" by The Smiths (1986)
Not the highest-ranked Smiths album in the list, not just yet and I think we had one yesterday too didn't we? The Queen Is Dead was the band at the height of their all-too-brief fame with Morrissey is overdrive with that sardonic, sledgehammer wit of his wielding his fountain pen with sarcasm abandon. Two vids: Big single from the album, followed by a live rendition of one of the band's happier songs, 'I Know It's Over':
No.233: "The Concert In Central Park" by Simon And Garfunkel (1981)
This legendary concert appearance brought back (with big bucks involved) that love/hate on-off relationship that was/is Simon & Garfunkel. Two contrasting, moody, grumpy personalities who begrudgingly went onto that New York City stage that day and gave the world's television audience their performance of a lifetime.
I haven't seen the televised gig since it was first aired when I was I think 16, but for once there is adequate footage of the whole thing on YouTube, so one day I'll catch up with it. Three songs here from that wonderful day:
Ffosse - As a lover of 1970's songsmiths, you need to see this.
I love throwing in a wild card now and again and this album certainly is a rarity in the field of songwriters who never quite made it.
I happened on this record very much by accident whilst I was visiting a fairground stall in 1981. There was a stall there whereby you pulled a string at the front and a vinyl album was raised up at the back of the stall. I won this one for about 25p I believe and I still have it. I also found the CD at great expense at HMV some years ago which cost me about £21.99 on import! How times change.
Anyway, I have always had a soft spot for this album as I regard Tim Moore as being right up there with the likes of Cat Stevens, Clifford T. Ward and even James Taylor as a brilliant singer-songwriter. The difference is that he had very little success. Apparently he is 68 years old now and still recording music.
There are, of course, no videos of Tim Moore, but I have found two audio documents of his marvellous gifted songwriting on the following songs:
The first is an absolute classic of a record which is firmly placed in my Top 100 tracks as one of my favourite love songs of all-time 'Second Avenue' (covered by Art Garfunkel and Colin Blunstone) then there's the more uptempo title track. The third song isn't Tim Moore at all but a fellow I discovered whilst looking for that 'Second Avenue' song - it's a guy called Larry F who does a brilliant version of this most underrated song by an even more unsung artist. You will enjoy these.
No.231: "Pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd" by Lynyrd Skynyrd (1973)
There isn't really much to say that hasn't already been said about this most unfortunate of all bands, Lynyrd Skynyrd. The only original member of the band who hasn't been cursed by catastrophe is guitarist Gary Rossington who has kept this amazing band alive throughout all the death, drugs, plane crashes, motorcycle crashes and everything else the member of this band have been struck down with. Though, as I write, even Rossington has decided to call it a day this year after a final tour. I would love to have seen them in their heyday. Their signature song 'Freebird' has got to contain the best guitar riff of any that has ever been committed to vinyl.
Stay tuned!!
In the next post is a 42-minute documentary about the history of this unique Southern Rock band.
An early start on this today as my plans for the gym fell apart due to the nature of being stiff as a board from yesterday's effort
A few here to peruse over. My apologies for some of the rather primitive narration I submit to these posts, I'm just running out of things to say to be Honest! Let's get this show on the road then....
No.230: “Penthouse And Pavement” by Heaven 17 (1981)
B.E.F. – The British Electric Foundation. The term given to a couple of ex-members of the Human League along with their childhood mate Glenn Gregory who was initially the first choice for lead singer in the original Human League (missing out to Phil Oakey as Gregory was temporarily in the U.S. making a living as a photographer). I spoke at length about Heaven 17 in an earlier post (for The Luxury Gap album) but this was their debut as a band. Very early 80’s, very disco-dancey, sharp suited and with a crisp production this was hit-friendly pop. A well-received album by the critics and the public but inevitably losing out to The human League’s ‘Dare’ monster in the chart stakes.
No.229: “Heathen” by David Bowie (2002)
One of the best post-1970’s albums released by David Bowie. In fact, probably until the final couple of albums before the great man sadly left us, Heathen was like a film noir thriller set to music. Very cold and mysterious with some additional sound effects and a cool aura about it. A really good album.