Happy New Year to all of you who text, e-mail, blog or just listen to Get It On. All of the team join me in wishing you all the best for 2008 and look forward to your contributions over the next twelve months.
I hope everyone has been enjoying the 'mix tapes' this week. It's been great hearing about the stories behind the choices and as promised I'm going to put them on the blog to share.
Here's Monday's mix-tape which featured music chosen by Colin Baxter:
It is nearly impossible to sum up the songs that mean so much - I could select 12 songs that apply just to the last week! Here goes then before I change my mind. Again!.
"He'll have to go" by Jim Reeves to open with. My earliest memories involve listen to scratchy old 78s on our gramophone in the sixties. My mum was into Jim Reeves and this song was a particular favourite. It reminds me of my grandparents coming to stay and being awakened with the noise of them having a sing-song downstairs.I would wander downstairs in my jammies and listen to my granddad who always sung this song. Sadly my grandparents and dad are no longer with us but this song reminds me of those happy times -it also started my musical awakenings. (Incidentally check out Ry Cooder's version of this -superb).
"Paint it black" by the Rolling Stones. This is the sound of the sixties.The haunting sound of Brian Jones's sitar playing the signature riff gets the hairs on the back of my neck standing. I remember singing this as a child when it came on the radio.
Moving on a few years now and the glam rock influence my big sister Margaret had - she was heavily into Mark Bolan and her bedroom wall was festooned with posters of him - she even had a life size poster on the inside of her wardrobe that came free in weekly instalments in a magazine she bought - the feet came fist, then the next week the knees, etc. My mum nearly had a heart attack one day when she opened the wardrobe to put her clothes away and she was confronted by this huge picture of a curly headed man in a spangly cat suit wearing make up! One day out of sheer "little-brother nastiness" I removed the smallest Mark Bolan newspaper picture from the bedroom wall - honestly it was the size of a postage stamp, and I scrunched it up and threw it out of the window. It landed in a puddle. My sister went nuts!! She rushed out, retrieved the picture and IRONED it before replacing it on the wall again! (then gave me a good thumping I may add). "Get it on" by T.Rex would be appropriate then - In fact it was the title of your program that drew me into listening as I thought it was a documentary about T.Rex. Glad I tuned in!!
At the age of 8 I was selected to take up violin at primary school. I was an OK violinist and played in an inter-school orchestra in Musselburgh. We were taught classical music but it really didn't appeal to me until I rediscovered it later in my teens. However I was more interested in playing folky -diddley-eye music, and would wind up my violin tutor something rotten by playing Irish jigs. However once I started Dalkeith high school the violin had to go - you just DON'T play violin at high school if you want to survive! At high school I was surrounded by people who were into all sorts of music, LPs, compilation tapes were swapped and a whole new world of music opened up for me.....
"Mr Bluesky" by ELO was one of the first pop songs I liked - a solid pulsing rhythm, a happy uplifting feel and the orchestration at the end of the song left me spellbound.It was around then that I started LISTENING to music -interpreting lyrics, discovering the delights of melody and harmony. This song made me feel happy, and it still does.
"Dance away" by Roxy Music / Brian Ferry.It was summer, my hormones were going crazy and I fell in love with a different woman every day! This song was on the radio almost constantly at the time and reminds me of lying in bed thinking about all those busty sixth form girls I lusted after.
Around this time I started listening to blues music after playing harmonica with a guitarist friend of mine. Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee were big influences and one of my favourites was "walking blues". I loved the sound of acoustic guitar and wailing harp and the honest and sometimes amusing lyrics - "I used to have an automobile it was painted white and black, I couldn't keep up the payments the man he came and took it back, that's why I'm walking.. walking my blues away...". The blues are the foundations for popular music. Out of curiosity I picked up my mate's guitar, figured out a couple of chords and I was away!! I've been playing blues ever since....
I left high school in 82 and went immediately on the dole. There were no jobs. Things were bleak. I spent almost 2 years honing my guitar skills and also became quite proficient at darts too! One morning I lay in bed listening to the radio. The DJ played a single by a band I'd never heard of- Everything but the Girl.The song was "Each and every one". I sat bolt upright - transfixed at the exotic bossa nova rhythm. The chords were so unusual - almost jazz like. I hurriedly got dressed and took the bus into town to buy the single. I remember asking for "everything but the girl" the new single by Each and every one! I took it home and played it to death, tried to work out the chords, and totally fell in love with the Latin American groove. This is the first and only time I have heard a piece of music that made me rush out to buy it immediately. Great piece of song writing and a fantastic album too (Eden).
Never one for mainstream pop music I get the occasional surprise when something different crops up out of the blue. Aztec Camera were one such band - Roddy Frame is hugely talented and wrote some cracking songs. Their seminal album "High land hard rain" is packed with gems, and "Oblivious" is one of these songs that I wish I'd written. Great chord sequence, catchy and one of those songs that make you want to grab your guitar and play! I would love the chance to sit down and talk to Roddy Frame about his influences - I just get a feeling when listening to this album that his parents were also into Jim Reeves -there are faint hints of country and western in there!
Getting back to the blues, as a spin - off I started getting into jazz, the traditional Dixie stuff that Louis Armstrong played. It is mostly blues -based and I soon built up a good collection of albums. However I soon started exploring the more diverse aspects of jazz particularly modal jazz. This fascinated me - it was based on a simple two-chord sequence but allowed the soloist to explore the scales involved. Mind-blowing stuff when you have Cannonball Adderly and John Coltrane on sax, and Miles Davis on trumpet. My next selection is from "kind of blue" possibly the greatest jazz album ever recorded. "So what" by Miles Davis is almost gospel like with the "call and response" interaction. The improvised soloing demonstrates that these guys were years ahead of their time. This is an album I love to listen to alone as I can't stand it if anyone else talks during it (it's the same with Dark side of the moon by Pink Floyd). Sheer indulgence!!
One of the pleasant surprises I've had recently was when one of the Sunday papers gave out a free demo CD of Idlewild. I'd never heard them before and I played the freebie a couple of times, wasn't too impressed and promptly lost it. I found it later under the seat in my car and played it again - It was brilliant! One of the songs was "You held the world in your arms" from the "Scottish fiction" album. I really enjoy this album and can hear the folk influences as well as the contemporary influences of REM in their music.I'm glad I gave this free cd a second chance. It makes me want to go back and play everything in my CD collection that I've not listened to for ages.
"These arms of mine" by the greatest soul singer Otis Redding, is the song that sums up exactly what I felt for my girlfriend Susan before she was my girlfriend. The song is simple enough, not over-orchestrated but the words and the way he delivers it is so emotionally charged - it just summed up precisely what I wanted to say to her.The pain and longing in the man's voice can't be learned, it comes from the heart, and that's what music is all about.
Finally, I finish on a song from the last album I bought. John Martyn is a true craftsman when it comes to song-writing - his career spans four decades, and he has over 20 studio albums to his name. He has written some beautiful love songs and his music has helped me through some difficult times. His earlier albums are folky, and bluesy, Solid Air possibly being my favourite album.His style has changed over the years and he really has explored every avenue musically. I bought "On the cobbles" a few weeks ago after seeing him perform one of the songs from it on his website. The song is"One for the road" and he has recaptured his folk roots on this track. It is delightful to hear the double bass and acoustic guitar again and the melody is pure "diddley-eye"- it sticks in your head and I've been singing it ever since.
Quite an eclectic mix there then from country, folk, blues, jazz, soul, pop, and rock. There are only eight notes in a scale but the combination of these is infinite! Music can express so many human emotions, which is why we can identify so readily with certain songs.This is why your program works so well - the range of styles of music bound together by a common theme is a winner. I just love hearing songs by people I've never heard of before and hearing songs again that I've not heard in years.It's about time you had a two hour slot every night!! All the best for 2008!
Colin