There are not many gears in the musical sub-genre of Surf Guitar. It is straight into overdrive, every time. There are no Surf Guitar tracks called “Moonlight Gently Touches Lapping Waters”. But it is a musical form which has no pretence, and at its best it is fun, exciting music. I have never learned to […]
Tag: Columbia (label)
If, like me, you grew up listening to the Beatles you may have wondered about the strange-sounding “piano-or-is-it-a-harpsichord” solo on the song “In My Life,” on the Rubber Soul album. It goes like this: This was the work of the “Fifth Beatle,” George Martin, so called because of his work playing, producing and arranging many […]
I am not a TV soap kinda guy. Nothing against the soapies – they give work to lots of actors and entertainment to millions of people, and are mostly harmless. Give me Neighbours over the latest vile reality-TV blood sport any day. Anyway, not being a watcher of soaps, I had not heard of Michele […]
Gene Autry, the first of the great singin’ cowboys of American popular culture, was also a dab hand at a Christmas tune. His biggest ever success was one: “Here Comes Santa Claus”. This is another, now pretty much forgotten, but a huge hit in its day. Released in 1951, “Thirty-two Feet – Eight Little Tails” […]
Carmen Dragon was the stage name of, well, Carmen Dragon. Slightly unusual name, especially for a male born in California in 1915. His first claim to public notice was as the composer of a theme song for his local high school. A local newspaper gave the composing credit to “a high school girl, Carmen Dragon”. […]
Five things I did not know about Dave Brubeck. He studied for two years to be a vet, before his zoology professor told him: “”Brubeck, your mind’s not here. It’s across the lawn in the conservatory. Please go there. Stop wasting my time and yours.” During the Second World War, while Brubeck was serving in […]
“In the dark times,” asked Berthold Brecht, In the dark times Will there also be singing? Yes, there will also be singing About the dark times. He was right and wrong: right about the singing, but not about the subject matter. Has the human race experienced a worse year than 1942? The world was at […]
After the First World War, Rudyard Kipling wrote beautiful short story, The Gardener, about a respectable middle-class Englishwoman, Helen Turrell. She is unmarried, but has an illegitimate son, Michael. Helen keeps up the pretence that Michael is her nephew, and the village pretends to believe it. When the war comes, Michael volunteers, and is sent to […]
Marie Warder was a teacher, writer and pianist who grew up in South Africa. Not long after the end of the Second World War, she was walking on a street in Johannesburg. I was about nineteen, newly married and very much in love, when I happened to pass by a music store one day, and […]
Trevor Stanford was born on in 1925 in Bristol, the seaport in the west of England. A man born in that time and place was pretty much certain to go to war – Germany invaded Poland the day before he turned thirteen – and he did, serving in the Royal Navy. His military service saw […]
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